


Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

by slexenskee (Sambomaster)



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Liberal use of the halo franchise, M/M, So pretty much every fps in the history of the xbox, and battlefield, and call of duty, and gears of war, fallout!au, zombie!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-17
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 20:03:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/969741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sambomaster/pseuds/slexenskee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaner + Tazer + Zombies. </p><p>In my head, I like to refer to it as, "If Tazer was Master Chief / the protagonist of fallout4"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. PART I

The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea

              

_._

_And out of the ground we were taken for the dust we are,_

_And to the dust we shall return_

_._

1\. **Movement**

 

Heat rises, and batters the desert into an uneasy, restless submission. He can almost smell the acidity which lingers in the stale air, a stench so vile and strong it’s near tangible; he feels if he reached a hand out, it could skim his fingers. The wasteland before him lays bare, but after years of travel he recognizes how disturbed the landscape is, edgy and unsettled and breathless. Anticipatory. Like it’s waiting for something.

 

It sets him on edge as well, has him adjusting the scopes on his gun, fiddling with his gloves. Finding nuances to pick at solicitously.

 

It’s not long before someone notices.

 

Sharpy edges over to him, careful to keep formation. Jon knows what he’ll say before his mouth opens.

 

“Doing okay?” From behind his mask, Jon can make out the distinct lines of concern on his brow. Like most of the men he commands, Sharpy wears a fully-plated helmet at all times.

 

At this point, for Jon, it’s an unnecessary caution.

 

“Fine.” He replies, stiffly. To anyone but Sharpy—who knows him closer than he’d ever be comfortable admitting—his terseness would only fall under the continuous rigid state of his personality, however to this the alternate only narrows his eyes.

 

“Something the matter?” He asks rather leadingly.

 

Jon shrugs. “Nothing concrete.” He scans the visible horizon: the toxic emptiness of the vast sky, the decaying dirt and stone, the visible heat which wafts upwards from the rock that felt like nothing, nothing, nothing, _nothing._ Just the cold sun and the earth. “It’s just…”

 

He wonders how to phrase it to Sharpy, a man who has spent the better part of his life within the city walls, where the sky sometimes looks real, and the air sometimes doesn’t hurt. How to describe his connection with the decrepit earth that understands him as much as he does it, how the endless silence might seem obligatory in a place full of nothing, but how Jon can hear it crying loudly, overwhelmingly, lighting each and every nerve of his on fire. _Something is wrong here,_ it seems to say, _something is amiss._

 

“Something’s not right.” He decides upon. “It’s too quiet.”

 

Sharpy takes a look around as well. More than anything he looks skeptical—Jon supposes it’d sound nonsensical to one who hasn’t spent as much time out here in the wastes as he. But time has long ingrained within him trust in his instincts, however farfetched and incomprehensible they are. Jon wonders what he sees, from behind his mask.

 

Whatever it is, it’s not the same view as Jon’s. “Well,” He replies eventually, after a long and unsuccessful sweep of the perimeter, “If something comes up, I’ll be sure to see it.”

 

He is the scout, after all. Jon admits he’s quite good at what he does, has the eyes of an eagle and the ears of an owl. But he is neither an eagle nor an owl—one of those would surely have agreed with Jon. Something wasn’t right.

 

The Blackhawks march into the horizon, and Jon idles in the back, caught up in attempting to categorize the unease he feels, pace so slow Seabs’ tank ambles by him. He hops onto the side, lurches to gain balance with the mechanical gait, and takes a seat beside Shaw. The rookie leans back against the turret ring, sniper poised against one shoulder.

 

“See something?” He asks immediately, as Jon settles beside him. His eyes don’t stray from his scopes.

 

“No.” Jon answers, squinting into the distance. It stretches onwards until he can’t tell the difference between the sky and the earth, both mottled into an indefinite color. Like this, it seems as if the deadzone stretched on forever.

 

Shaw’s eyes wander from his lens. He chances a brief, reproachful look at Jon that he probably thinks Jon can’t see before quickly returning to his scouting. It’s not as if Jon doesn’t know his team’s opinion on him. Though he hasn’t been their commander for very long, he has a reputation which supersedes him and innumerable idiosyncrasies he’s aware most find alarming. Most, he knows, hold him in high regard. Or hold his valor, at any rate. People who spend any significant amount of time in his presence either come to accept his personal shortcomings or quietly object; either way, his command is never questioned, and Jon rarely cares about what people think of him in general, let alone personally.

 

Shaw, he thinks though, does neither. Mostly, the rookie has a constant look of reverent alarm whenever Jon speaks to him directly. Jon doesn’t mind. Shaw is a good soldier and an even better shot, whatever his opinions are on his Captain they clearly don’t affect his focus.

 

Brief movement far out catches his eye, but before he can get a close look Sharpy shouts, “On your six!” And Shaw picks it off. Jon turns in time to watch a mangled figure collapse into the dirt.

 

“Target down.” Shaw replies into his comm. “Threat neutralized—

 

“Keep your sights on it.” Jon cuts him off. And then, into his communicator. “Everyone, eyes on six o’clock.”

 

Jon can feel Shaw’s curious eyes on him, though he doesn’t take his eyes off the horizon. “There’s never only one.” He says by way of explanation.

 

True to form, more figures move out from behind a far outcropping of rocks. At this distance, their mutilated figures look like dark lumps. Jon doesn’t hesitate; draws his M16 and fires rapidly, shots joltingly loud in the unnerving quiet of the wastes. 

 

He watches as they fall into the dust, then narrows his eyes.

 

Wordlessly he drops back onto the ground, crouching, pulling off a glove to press his bare hand into the dirt.

 

Jon closes his eyes, relaxes his fingers. Silence rings in his ears. He thinks on what’s missing; the sounds of the ravens and the crows, the skittering of tiny creatures—the life, however sparse it may be out here, there is always some form of life. It’s glaringly missing.

 

And there’s only one thing on this decrepit earth that causes that.

 

He stands back up, pulls his gloves on and speaks evenly into the communicator.

 

“It’s an ambush.”

 

Shaw sits up abruptly, curses flow wildly from his earpiece.

 

“Keep formation,” He calls over the din. “Stay by the tanks. Leddy, Oduya, I want you on turrets. Duncs, Seabs, you two ready?”

 

“Affirmative.” He gets from both drivers.

 

Sharpy climbs onto the top of Duncs’ tank, raising his sniper. Shaw does the same for Seabs’.

 

He waits, on guard, moving to stand front with Hossa and Saad. The silence is overwhelming. Beneath him, the faint tremors have grown until he can feel them through his boots. By now, the rest of the team can hear them too.

 

When they come, the ground to their left collapses inwards in an eruption of dust. The clout envelops the entire convoy in one fell swoop, a blanket of darkness stripping him of vision just as the first of them crawl out of the ground. There is a terrifying moment before his mask switches to heat vision, where the silence has given way to the guttural sounds of the undead, and even through his mask the vile, repugnant smell of decaying flesh hits his nose.

 

In those brief seconds all he can hear is the slopping flesh and rattling bones, feels a familiar terror seize him as he blinks into nothingness—but then his vision lights up once more, and he shakes the fear away and dives into the fray.

 

-

 

It’s not the first nor the last time Jon’s been caught off guard; but he’s disappointed in himself regardless. He spent two years with the Fighting Sioux, traversing the wasteland that the Earth has become. He’s learned how to read the deadlands, to listen to the dust. That it took him so long is somewhat distressing. Fortunately unlike the Sioux the Blackhawks come armed with heavy artillery and a handful of T-90’s, and a mob of Risen isn’t likely to slow them down.

 

He supposes the event wasn’t an entire loss; leaving such an outnumbered fight with no casualties is always an accomplishment.

 

The convoy’s stopped for repairs—at some point during the fight Duncs’ conveyor belt got screwed up from a stray Risen getting into the gears and the party’s stopped to allow Hossa to check on the mechanics. Though they’ve already been attacked, Jon still feels on edge.

 

It’s the openness, he reasons. The Sioux kept to the safety and protection of the rocks and cliffs, moving swiftly and efficiently through the wastes by keeping close to cover. There’s no cover out here in the emptiness and it sets him on edge, makes him want to command the squadron to keep to the bluffs.

 

Jon shakes his head; he’s not recon anymore.

 

He leans back onto the side of Duncs’ T-90, staring east as if he could see through the haze. Somewhere out there is a group of refugees waiting for rescue, and at this rate they won’t make it to them by sundown. He’ll have to make the call to continue through the night or head back at sunset soon, and just the thought makes a headache clamor to the forefront of his brow.

 

“You did good.” Sharpy hops up next to him.

 

And, when Jon says nothing, “No one could have predicted it—that you gave us any heads up at all is pretty incredible.”

 

Jon frowns. “I knew… something wasn’t right and I didn’t check—

 

“You did what you could.” Sharpy cuts him off. “You kept your head, kept your men alive.”

 

He nods.

 

Sharpy turns to him seriously. “You’re a good captain.”

 

“I…” Jon blinks. Sometimes he forgets his own age, how much older the men he commands are than him. Since he was made captain of the Blackhawks it’s been an effort to keep afloat, struggling his way through the responsibilities, all the difficult decisions that now rest solely on him. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted the affirmation until now. “Thank you.” He says, finally.

 

“Fuck Hoss, take a little longer, eh?” Duncs shouts, throwing open the hatch and hopping onto the lid.

 

Hossa looks up from his work with grave annoyance. “This wouldn’t have happened if you’d only watched where you’re going—

 

“The fucker came on to me!” Duncs protests. “It’s not like I could turn out of the way!”

 

Sharpy snorts, looking like he has a few choice words to say to that. Whether it’s true or not, Jon is content to see his team in good spirits, all alive and well.

 

Stalberg ambles over to where Hossa crouches in front of the wheels, Hayes not too far behind. He makes a face as he peers down for a better look. “Oh, jesus. How’d all that get in there?”

 

“If only I knew.” Hossa grouses in reply. He sticks a hazmat-suit covered arm into the tracking and shovels out a handful of carnage. Stally _really_ makes a face at that.

 

Hayes comes up to peer over Stalberg’s shoulder. Unlike Viktor, who appears to be in the midst of working his lunch out of his stomach, Haysey mostly looks interested. “What _is_ that?” And then, with more relish than necessary, “Good God, is it smoking?”

 

“Don’t touch it.” Jon snaps in warning.

 

The rookie recoils, withdrawing his hand but still looking on curiously. “Is that really what they look like from the inside?”

 

“After they’ve been ground up by a tank, yes.” Hossa replies acerbically.

 

“It’s burning.” Hayes points out, somewhat needlessly.

 

“It’s corrosive.” Hossa motions to the hazmat suit he donned. “Don’t touch it—even with your gloves on.”

 

Hayes blinks at that, surprised. Jon studies him, and not for the first time has to remind himself that there are rookies on this team who’ve never strayed too far from Chicago’s walls. That there are people under his command that have never spent years out here with only a radio to remind them that home still exists, somewhere.

 

“Clean up’ll come by soon enough and raze them all.” Hossa explains. ‘But, for now, just try not to touch any of them, alright?”

 

“Sure.” Hayes nods agreeably. And then, excitedly, “But, what’ll happen if someone does?”

 

If there was ever a time Jon knew so little about the Risen—or even had as much of a drop of fascination with them as Hayes did—he can’t remember it. Can’t remember a time when he didn’t know the answer that Hossa is so clearly attempting to tactfully avoid. When he didn’t know how the human flesh erodes slowly, flaying out like peels, how it eats away until even the bones are gone.

 

When he didn’t know why the world was covered in dust.

 

“How much longer for the repairs?” He asks, mercifully saving Hoss from having to answer.

 

Hossa pats the metal flank. “As long as Duncs doesn’t run over anything else, we’re good to go.” The man shoots an exasperated look towards the tank driver as he stands. Duncs only shrugs.

 

“Then let’s keep going.” Jon pushes off the side, commanding into his comm, “Hawks, moving out.”

 

With a clap to his shoulder Sharpy jumps up to take point. Hossa peels off his hazmat suit, and Stalberg tugs Hayes away.

 

The convoy continues.

 

Jon looks up, studies the bleak sun. High noon.

 

He frowns.

 

Though the sun is nothing more than a benign, lifeless presence in the sky, the Risen rarely move during daytime. As the party continues down the road, Jon thinks, not for the first time, that something is wrong. Was the ambush only the beginning? What could have made them attack like that? Generally Jon likes to forget that Risen were once human—that they still do, technically, share the same DNA—but while the human-like creatures outside of the walls of civilization resemble rabid animals rather than sentient creatures, they still retain some amount of intelligence, though Jon has never kept one around long enough for conversation.

 

He looks back down to the earth once more, tries to remember the teachings he’s learned from his years in the desert. TJ used to say he spent too much time looking at the dirt—but TJ also couldn’t track for shit.

 

Something must have spurred them into action, Jon thinks as they march on. A horde like that only moves out of necessity.

 

Hunger, perhaps. But the Risen would have heard the tanks, felt the tremors of a large group. They strike travelers and stragglers—they’d keep far away from a troop like the Hawks.

 

Jon doesn’t have much time to think on it; Shaw bellows out, “Four o’clock!” and the convoy halts in its track, all eyes trained into the direction.

 

Jon squints into his scopes—A heat mirage obscures the ground from serious inspection, but even from the distance Jon can make out the distinct jut of an upturned vehicle, blurred movement around it.

 

Though it’s hard to see, Jon gathers all he needs from the jerky, inhuman motion.

 

“Risen.” He intones, resignedly.

 

Sharpy whistles low. “Those people are long gone.” He sighs. “We’ll have to report to command—the envoy from Edmonton is unsalvageable.”

 

“We’re not going to check for bodies?” Hayes balks. “What if someone’s still alive out there?”

 

“It’d be impossible to tell.” Oduya points out. “Heat vision can’t tell the difference between the Risen and humans. And that’s a lot of Risen. A group like that would be a feast for them.”

 

That’s not entirely true. Jon doesn’t remark upon it, however, only switches onto his own heat vision, taking an alternate look at the scene before him. While Oduya’s mostly correct, Risen generally have a higher body temperature—helps them adapt to the cold of the wastes—but this far it’s a low bet that Jon would be able to see anything—

 

Jon blinks.

 

There’s movement.

 

There is a figure, lying at the bottom of the sky, slumped into the dust with a heart beat that blooms with color. And, by some miracle, the Risen are entirely ignoring it.

 

His mouth opens, and he drops the scopes to see it with his own eyes. He’s not hallucinating. It’s not a mechanical malfunction. Even from this distance he can make out the indistinct smudge of a human, tossed out from the upturned remains of the envoy, half buried in dust.

 

“Hold on,” He shouts to Sharpy, taking off.

 

“Hey—“ Sharpy yelps, and then, warningly. “ _Jon_! What the fuck are you—

 

But Jon’s gone, racing out into the open, unprotected desert. The Risen notice him, of course, but they’re content with their lion’s share for now, unwilling to take on a fully armed, fully healthy human when there’s plenty already for the taking. He turns away from the sight of them; it’s no use, anyway, those humans are long dead.

 

Jon focuses on the figure some ways away—the breath catches fast in the top of his throat.

 

It’s… it’s just a boy.

 

He can’t be any older than Jon, with a head of winter-wheat curls. Jon ducks down into the dirt, hovering over the boy’s prone form. The cacophony in his ear grows unbearable; all his teammates shouting all at once; _get the fuck back here, what the fuck is he doing, is he crazy? He’s going to be killed—_ Jon doesn’t hear any of them. He presses his bare hand to the boy’s neck, feeling for the heartbeat he’d seen with his own eyes. It’s there, but faint.

 

There’s the sound of his team, and the anarchy of the Risen, but it’s all submerged into silence when he catches sight of the boy’s mask—

 

It’s broken.

 

Jon sits, stunned. The red light at the base of his chin, the red light where there’s supposed to be green, flashes unerringly at Jon. He presses his fingers up onto his neck again, feels around for it and—there, it’s still there.

 

His hearts still beating.

 

His mask is broken, he’s no less than ten feet away from a horde of hungry Risen and his mask is broken, he should be dead, he should have died from the toxic air, _his mask is broken and he should be dead but he’s not._

 

And then he opens his eyes.

 

**2\. Safe**

Jon doesn’t fly with him in the helicopter evac. A strange, undeveloped part of him feels grave reluctance at this; but he shakes it off. He doesn’t know that boy—yet he watches the helicopter float off into the gloom anyway. Sharpy goes, if only because someone should _._ The rest of the team, if possible, gives Jon a wider berth than usual.

 

They cut it close on the way back; the sun burns at the edges of the mountains, licks futilely into the blackness of night. Jon feels the minute tremors in the ground—the Risen are waking, rummaging around miles below them, in their intricate caverns and cities. He hurries.

 

No one speaks upon the lone boy saved from the wreckage, or of Jon’s streak of heroism and madness. At least, not until they’re in the safety behind the Panoramic Gate. The locker room smells mostly of generic human odors, but Jon can always smell the bile of the wastes long after he’s left them, where it lingers beneath his skin and in the corners of his eyes. Shaw is a quiet, but reluctant presence by his side. He strips systematically until he’s left in nothing but his body suit before he turns to Jon.

 

“So,” He preambles, hesitating. “You hear anything about that guy?”

 

Conversation carries on, but as if a switch has been turned, the volume lowers audibly.

 

“No.” He answers, honestly. “Sharpy’s meant to call me with an update in an hour or so.”

 

“Oh. Well, alright.” He’s not satisfied—Jon can see the question lining his face. Can see how he searches Jon’s profile as if somehow he could wrench out the answer without having to ask.

 

It comes out eventually. “How did you know?” Shaw questions, quietly. “That he was still alive.” He adds, like an afterthought.

 

“A good guess.” Jon answers, blandly. “I saw the heartbeat. Too slow for a Risen, and his temperature was a little lower.”

 

Shaw doesn’t make to ask anything else, but the look on his face tells Jon his answer wasn’t particularly satisfying. He doesn’t elaborate however; unzips himself from the bodysuit, peeling it off his skin with distinct satisfaction. He doesn’t notice its their for the most part, protecting him like a secondary artificial layer of skin, until he has to take it off. Then, it feels like he’s finally coming back to himself.

 

Coming back to being human.

 

He turns around, shoving his stuff into the duffel from his locker and walking out without a backwards glance. He can hear the team start up in lowered murmurs in his wake—they’ve never been much of a team for subtleties, Jon supposes. Over the vague drone of whispers, he can hear Shaw remark, incredulously, “But even _~~I~~_ didn’t pick up anything like that on my scopes…” And doesn’t know whether to be bemused or offended.

 

Of course he didn’t.

 

He’s not Jon.

 

• * •

 

Sharpy gets back to him a few hours later. Jon’s standing in his unlit kitchen, illuminated only by the wintry spill of the open refrigerator, contemplating the contents of it’s interior. Most of it expired months ago. There’s a knock on his door that startles into movement.

 

“Yo.” Sharpy greets, one hand raised in lazy salute.

 

Jon nods, turning around to allow the sniper in. He makes the pretense of at least pretending not to look around Jon’s apartment. There’s not much to see, anyway. He’s done nothing with it since it was given to him; hasn’t changed any of the generic, spartan furniture, the bland sallow color of the walls. He’s away so often it never felt like a useful waste of his time.

 

“So, the kid’s alright.” Sharpy begins, seating himself at Jon’s kitchen table. There’s a layer of dust that shifts with his figure. Jon can’t even remember the last time he used the wooden surface.

 

“That’s good.” Jon replies, devoid of any serious interest. “Drink?” He asks, cordially.

 

Sharpy waves him off. “Unless that’s an offer for whiskey. In which case, yes. Extra ice.”

 

Jon rolls his eyes.

 

“The hospital was actually pretty surprised by his condition.” Sharpy continues on, undeterred. “Aside from a few scratches and bruises, he’s pretty okay. Banged up, but okay. Only needed, like, four or so stitches.”

 

“Alright.”

 

Sharpy tilts his head, appraising him with sharp, keen eyes. “You know, for someone who risked his life to save him you’re not very invested in his general wellbeing.”

 

Jon returns with two glasses of water. He sets one in front of Sharpy, pointedly ignoring his noise of remorse when he realizes it’s not alcohol. “Why would I be invested?” He replies, seating himself to Sharpy’s left. “He’s safe. And alive. I don’t need to know much else.”

 

Sharpy sends him an incredulous look. “The team’s going crazy over it.” He points out. “Granted, it’s a young team, and we don’t get rescues very often… especially ones as dramatic as yours. But they literally pounced on me when I went to see them—asking about his name, where he’s from, when can they see him… you really don’t care at all?”

 

“I care.” Jon shrugs. In the abstract, anyway. It’s not the how he’s all that concerned with.

 

It’s the _what._

“He’s a good kid, you know.” Sharpy soldiers forward. “Nice. Real funny. The first thing he asks me is, ‘Is this Chicago?’, and I tell him it is, and then he goes, ‘Oh, okay. How hot are the girls here?’.”

 

Jon nods, if only to prove he’s still listening.

 

“He asked about you, you know.” The sniper remarks, pointedly.

 

Jon’s had enough of the subterfuge, at this point.

 

“What do you want from me?” He asks, bluntly. He knows Sharpy well enough to notice when he’s being played, or coerced into a certain action. Sharpy may think he’s being subtle about it—but he doesn’t know subtle the way Jon does.

 

“You could at least see him.” Sharpy drops any pretense at polite conversation, demeanor dropping into something cold. “He’s just a kid, Jon. Those people in that envoy could’ve been his family—he’s all alone here and doesn’t know anyone. He’s scared. And for some reason, he’s asking about you. The least you could do is go and see him.”

 

“You’ve grown attached to him.” Jon observes.

 

Sharpy scowls. “Like I said, he’s a good kid. Can’t be any older than you—and god knows that’s way too young.”

 

“I’d probably only scare him more.” Jon points out, darkly. Not entirely untrue.

 

“You don’t give yourself enough credit.” Sharpy shakes his head. “No one thinks of you like that, Jon.”

 

But don’t they? The Sioux are as legendary as they are feared. Rangers of the wastelands, they say, as much Risen as they once were human. Being out there that long changes you, they say. Changes you somewhere that you can’t ever change back.

 

“I’ll go.” He agrees, resignedly. There’s nothing he’d like less than walking into the hospital. They never seem to want to do anything but stab needles in him when he goes there.

 

It’s not an entire loss though, he remises. Perhaps he’ll learn more about the boy who should be dead.

 

He dreams that night.

 

Patrick is in them, which when he wakes annoys him on a level as unnecessary as it is confusing. Like all his dreams, he’s out on the wastes. TJ is by his side, Captain is in front of them, and Jon can see the stitching of ‘ _The Fighting Sioux’, Twelfth Company_ on the patch against his arm with a startling clarity. It always catches his eye—even though he has the same one on his arm. But suddenly his eye moves towards the barren outlands—and there is a figure slumped at the bottom of the sky, covered in the dust of those that came before him. Jon knows this part; runs into the wastes but Captain catches his arm.

 

 _‘Don’t,_ He says.

 

Jon does. He runs into the open desert and kneels by Patrick’s side. Patrick’s mask is broken, but his breath rattles audibly in his lungs. ‘He’s okay!’ Jon calls back, over the distance. ‘He’s alive!’ Captain is shaking his head. TJ’s face looks an uncertain mixture of fear and regret. The rest of the Sioux exist as indistinct smudges of brown behind them, cloaks billowing in the wind.

 

Jon wakes to the morning sun, a watery, weak light that never truly warms anything. He squints into it; and then moves to get ready to visit the hospital.

 

• * •

 

 

Patrick is loud, obnoxious, irritating, naïve and the biggest enigma Jon has ever had the displeasure of wanting to take apart.

 

He’s charmed most of the hospital staff already—especially the women. Patrick has such an awkward way with women. Jon doesn’t think his mop of flaxen hair is anything like endearing and yet women flock to it, cooing and petting and giggling when he tells his unfortunate jokes, smiling back when he grins at them. At a glance, Patrick is any average kid.

 

But Jon sees right through that. He’s about as much of a kid as Jon is—which is to say, not at all.

 

Perhaps he thinks he’s fooled Jon with the ruse, blinded him with that cheery little smile as effectively as he has everyone else. But everything in Jon lights on fire when Patrick’s gaze turns to him, his instincts tremble and burn and he _doesn’t know what to do with that._ Can’t help but think of the moment he’d first met them, the ungodly, luminous eyes catching his for a brief moment—and in that look, in that moment at the bottom of the sky where both Risen and colleagues existed in a diminutive plane neither of them acknowledged, all the hairs on the back of Jon’s neck stood and he thought he could see into them into something otherworldly, something _else._

Jon thinks on that red light, flashing, reporting a failure, a malfunction. A broken mask.

 

Patrick should have died in that moment. The air should have flayed away at his lungs and through his blood and bones until he was nothing left.

 

But he’s not.

 

He’s here, up and trailing after a beautiful nurse with a hopeful little smile, prodding her into a laugh with what Jon assumes is another wretched attempt at humor.

Jon doesn’t know what to do with that, either.

 

So he does the next best thing.

 

“Well,” He begins, standing from his watchful seat in the corner. “Looks like you’re good to go.”

 

“Huh?”

 

Jon motions vaguely to him. “Up and running, at any rate.”

 

Patrick stops pestering the nurse, a faltering look crossing his face. It lingers briefly, before shuttering into something unreadable. “Oh.” He replies, flatly. “Well, thanks for stopping by.”

 

Patrick looks at him with something unending, and Jon returns the look, confused. It’s not anything Jon can understand. He wonders what’s going on here. Then he wonders if he really wants to know all that badly.

 

Turns out he doesn’t.

 

“Take care of yourself.” He throws out as he walks out the door. Whether Patrick does or not, it’s no fault or interest of his. He doesn’t catch the steady gaze that Patrick leaves on him as he walks away, nor does he see the look that returns tenfold onto Patrick’s features.

 

If he had, he’d have recognized it, from years of seeing it on his own.

 

It was something like loneliness.

 

• * •

 

Jon doesn’t go looking for Patrick again, although it seems like the blonde is doing everything in his power to find _him_.

 

Jon learns that he enrolled in the Blackhawks with no small amount of disbelief—it must show somewhat on his face, because Sharpy blinks interestedly at him. He covers it quickly.

 

“Good for him.” Jon shrugs. “He, at least, will probably know what he’s getting into.”

 

“Training camp’s not for another few weeks.” Sharpy points out. “And as Captain, you could stop by.”

 

 _Why bother?_ Jon thinks but doesn’t say. Half those kids won’t make it out of the gates. The other half will, but will never want to leave them again.

 

Instead, he narrows his eyes at his alternate.

“Is there a reason you’re so adamant that I go and see him?”

 

This look, Jon knows. It’s Sharpy trying to hide something—be it a simple prank or the location of Jon’s bayonet, Jon’s learned not to like it.

 

“Nah,” He waves it off. Liar. Jon lets it go in the face of his own curiosity.

 

“Why?” Jon drops the binoculars back onto his chest, turning away from the expanse of the desert to give Sharpy his full attention. Guard duty is one of his least favorite activities but unfortunately a necessary evil. It’s normally reserved for the Ice Hog’s, but they’re apparently all occupied. Occupied at the bar, maybe. Jon doesn’t know what else they could be up to on a Friday night with no missions.

 

“Why did he join?” Sharpy elaborates.

 

Jon nods.

 

He rolls his eyes. “…You really don’t know.”

 

The look he gives Sharpy should convey the exact amount of patience he has right now.

 

“He likes you, Jon.” Sharpy sighs, leaning against the balcony. “He… looks up to you, I think. Who the fuck knows why. But he asks about you—all the time. To everyone, pretty much. Where you’re from, who you are… I’m fairly sure he’s enlisting because you’re Captain.”

 

“That’s a foolish reason to enlist.” Jon points out, completely avoiding the rest of Sharpy’s monologue.

 

“Is it?”

 

Sharpy leaves the question—and the answer—hanging in the air between them. Jon’s saved from having to acknowledge either by an outcropping of Risen unearthing from a clout of dust. He levels his sniper, and rhythmically picks them off one by one.

 

“All I’m saying is that… he’d really appreciate you being there.” Sharpy barrels on, once he’s finished.

 

“You know him very well.” Jon notes, pulling the gun down to reload.

 

“Yeah, I do. We all do—we’ve all gotten to know him pretty well. Like I said, he’s a good kid.” At this, he gives another austere look that Jon studiously avoids.

 

Jon sighs. “When’s camp?”

 

He really has no interest in going. The last time Jon had been to any kind of training camp was a time too long ago to remember, before the Hawks, before the Sioux. No one ever doubts him, these days. No one ever asks for him to prove himself.

 

“Starts in September.” Sharpy replies.

 

That’s soon.

 

Too soon.

 

Jon sighs again.

 

Sharpy is, undoubtedly, the most troublesome person he’s ever had the misfortune of knowing.

 

And that’s even including TJ.

 

• * •

 

He may have promised Sharpy he’d attend at least one of the training sessions—but he’d never mentioned _how._

The observer’s balcony remained empty for the duration of his stay there, aside from an old suit or two peering down with little interest into the drills. Jon knew, in the abstract, that the Blackhawks were _owned._ They weren’t some public service or city army or anything like that—they were soldiers owned by a corporation. He also knew, in the abstract, that therefore there must be a hierarchy that existed outside of the Blackhawks and their retainers—people above Q and Bowman. Jon, however, was perfectly happy never knowing anything more than that.

 

He was glad for the observer’s balcony anyway, the tinted glass obscuring him from view.

 

And he had to admit, however begrudgingly, that Patrick wasn’t at an _entire_ loss joining the Hawks.

 

He was easily the best person down there, easily better than half the Hawks now. Watching him made Jon’s breath catch traitorously—he did more than disarm the other candidates, hop and skip and jump through terrain circuits, dodge and parry, lead his team through fake scenarios. He _listened._ In that way that Jon did, that Captain did; caught the movement before it happened, knew his opponent more than his opponent probably knew himself. He had the instinct of a man that spent years in the outlands, honing himself until he existed on a level beyond human. Had the hands of one, too. Jon was summarily (and begrudgingly) impressed with his swordplay, his steady hands as he lined his shot up, his _aim,_ like he always knew where everyone in the field was at any given moment, and knew how they would move for every moment after.

 

Jon watched him dodge, roll into the dirt as he planted one hand to pitch himself back upright. In that same fluid movement he brought up his gun, splattered the attacker at his front with paint and then ducked and turned to splatter the one behind him. If they’d been using real guns for this exercise, Jon would have seen the back splatter of a severed artery like spattered wings against the dirt behind them—Kane knew the human body. Knew how to shoot for the kill.

 

He watched so intently he hadn’t noticed the presence entering the room.

 

“Hadn’t expected to see you here.”

 

Jon made no sign of surprise, tilting his head in greeting.

 

“I was asked.” He replied, dry.

 

“By Sharp?” Q returned, amused. “Ah. I’m surprised _he’s_ not the one here—he’s always had a soft spot for the rookies.”

 

Sharpy sort of had a soft spot for everyone—even Jon, which said something. He’d make a good Captain, Jon thought, not for the first time. A reliable Captain. A _relatable_ Captain.

 

Q draws closer the swooping windows. “There’s one I don’t recognize here… A curious one. He’s very good.”

 

“Kane.” Jon states. It’s not much of a question.

 

“Is that his name?” Q muses aloud. He turns towards the man in question, weaving his way through the opposition with a dexterity that still surprises Jon, even though he’s been watching for quite some time now. “He’s good. Quick.”

 

Jon feels his gaze rather than sees it, knows the moment it leaves the windows to settle on Jon’s form. “Reminds me of someone.”

 

 _He does._ Jon agrees, silently.

 

He’d be a fool not to see it.

 

How startlingly alike he and Kane are.

 

.

 

Jon’s not lurking, no matter how many times Duncs and Seabs enjoy using the word to describe it. He’s observing. Listening. This is what Jon does—this is why Jon is still alive.

 

He sits in the back, cloaked in shadow, watching the hustle of the locker room but ultimately setting his sights on the blonde at the far side of the room. Kane is talking stupidly loudly, as per usual, but Jon can see how fluid his movements are, the deft flex and pull of his muscles that don’t come from life in the Gates. He’s noticed it long before this point; he’s waiting for something else.

 

His eyes narrow when he sees it.

 

The definitive mark lay in the indent of his shoulder and arm, too obscured for Jon to know it by sight, but clear enough for Jon to know it was there at all. A team mark. Jon has two—one for the Sioux and one for the Hawks. Patrick turns, rustling into his bag, and Jon sees the other one. His brows raise. Two?

 

The idea of Patrick being on any kind of team isn’t as surprising as the idea of him being on _two._

 

It put at least some part of the puzzle together though, why Patrick reminded him so much of himself, why he moved like Jon, had eyes like Jon.

 

His thoughts flicker back to that moment in the desert, Patrick’s limp form in his arms and the beating of his heart beneath Jon’s palm. His eyes, opening, the grave blue of them so foreign against the blinking red of his mask _._

It explained some parts.

 

But not all.

 

He pushes off the wall, keeps to the darkness lining the edge of the room and exits as quietly as he came.

 

 

 

 

**3\. All Along The Watchtower**

Jon squints into the light, biting against his tongue to keep from doing something he’ll regret soon thereafter—like killing this woman. Shining a light in his eye is a stupid reason to die.

 

Yet she was pushing her luck by continuing for another ten minutes, anyway.

 

“Hmmm…” She mutters, finally pulling away. Nothing on her face spoke of satisfaction, however. “I’ll still want to run some tests.”

 

“No tests.” Jon’s tone broke no room for argument. “I don’t have the time. Am I cleared?”

 

“I suppose.” She admits, reluctantly. She keeps eying him like an interesting puzzle to take apart. Jon suddenly remembers why he hates the hospital with such an insistent fervor. “You’re sure there’s no difficulty in vision? Headaches? Dizziness?”

 

“No.” He answers, shortly. His stomach feels like someone had upended it onto the ground. She keeps eying him up and Jon can feel the tenseness skitter around his bones, wants to bolt out of here, jump out the window, do _something,_ to run from this feeling.

 

“Well, if you’re sure…”

 

He walks out briskly, not bothering with anything else.

 

She has a right to be concerned, is the real crux of it. He makes a quick detour into the bathroom, wondered briefly if he’ll throw up and eyes the contents of the toilet just in case. In the end, he doesn’t, only throws quick splashes of water onto his face. When he looks at his reflection in the mirror, he’s not sure he likes what he sees. She’s right—there’s a serious discoloration to his eyes, like blindness. Jon peers into himself, so close his nose almost touches the surface and his breath fogs the glass. He thinks he sees more color in there than usual, but that’s foolish.

 

He’s shaky and on edge anyway, arriving in the debriefing room far earlier than needed.

 

Q stands by the glass wall, the surface lit with the mission briefing. Jon takes a seat in the lone conference room. It’s a few minutes before anyone starts arriving, but by the time the whole team sits assembled in the office he feels a little more like himself and a little less like someone else. Jon catches sight of Kane’s bright mop of hair from across the room, but refuses to look in the direction. Q’s left the room, but comes back soon thereafter, on a call and speaking in quiet murmurs.

 

Finally, he pipes up, connecting the call onto the intercom. “So it’s been over twenty-four hours without contact, then?” Q asks, loud enough for the whole room to hear.

 

“Appears to be that way.” The voice replies.  “We’ve been able to connect with the Preds and the Blues through radio, but absolutely nothing from Columbus.”

 

Q turns then, face set into a grim line of determination. “Blackhawks,” He intones. “We have a situation. One of the largest power connectors in the East has recently gone dark. The tower is located in Cincinnati, Ohio and provides power and communications for all of the Southeast Region, most specifically the city of Columbus, Ohio. The Chicago Blackhawks have been asked for assistance in the emergency repairing and replacing of the transformer.”

 

He motions to the intercom. “Captain Crosby, if you will.”

 

“Right, thanks. I’ll take it from here.”

 

Jon blinks. Captain Crosby. _Sid._ He tries to picture the deep, solemn voice with the gentle face of his old Captain, but doesn’t quite manage it. Sid had been one of the many Commanders on the Canadian force of the Olympian wars—but he was by far one of the most formidable, and the one Jon had connected with the most. He hadn’t been all that much older than Jon at the time, but Jon could only remember him handling every situation with a surprising grace, always holding a level head and a wisdom beyond his years.

 

“For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Captain Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins. I regret that we’ve had to meet this way.” He begins.

 

“The Red Wings recently conducted a survey of the power providers in the North Eastern region and concluded that the tower in Cincinnati was in need of serious repairs. When the Blue Jackets were sent to assess the situation, Columbus lost contact with them. Soon thereafter, the entire city of Columbus went dark. The power conductor has since been labeled as ‘currently malfunctioning’, but may or may not have been entirely destroyed, because both Nashville and St. Louis have reported power shortages and an difficulty accessing their telecommunication lines.”

 

A tremulous pause, and then, “There’s been no contact at all from Columbus… We’ve been fielding reports of sightings of large groups of Risen by both the Predators and the Blues in the direction of Columbus, Ohio.”

 

The room stills in a silence so tangible that it fell around Jon’s ears like white noise. He knows he’s thinking of the _exact_ sameevent everyone else in this room must be, one which shares an eerie similarity:

 

_The Siege of Buffalo._

 

He snaps to attention at a startling crack; Kane has splintered his cup, a jagged edge descending down the rim of the plastic.

 

Jon clears his throat, speaking into the comm. “Sid,” He greets. “This is Jon.”

 

“Jon?” Sid replies, confusion working its way through his cordial tone.

 

“Jonathan Toews.” He elaborates.

 

“Oh!” Something like genuine pleasure colors his voice then. “Tazer! It’s great to hear from you! How are you?”

 

“I’m well, thank you. I’m the current Captain for the Chicago Blackhawks.” He can already hear the delighted little murmurs from behind him at the nickname—he scowls. No doubt no one will ever call him Captain Toews again. The last thing he needs is for all of them to start calling him ‘Toes’, too. “You’re saying you want us to go in and appraise the situation?”

 

“Yes.” Sid agrees.

 

Jon frowns, brows narrowing. “But we have no further intel on the current state on the power source or Columbus?”

 

“Yes.” He repeats.

 

If possible, his brows contort further. “This… sounds hazardous.” He phrases, as tactfully as possible when all he can think is _suicide mission._ “The Blackhawks are a heavy artillery-based team. And it sounds to me like we’ll have to prepare for some heavy opposition.” _Or prepare for the worst._ “Just getting to Cincinnati could take us weeks.”

 

“I know.” Sid sighs. “Look, I know this is a lot to ask of you. But to be quite honest, Chicago is the only city with the manpower and the technology to make a repair like this. I think we all know the state of Detroit right now—and the Preds and the Blues don’t have the kind of fire power you guys do. I know it’s entirely out of the way… I know it sounds like a suicide mission,”

 

 _Sounds like?_ Jon thinks, rather hysterically. Or _is_ like?

 

“But this power connector… provides a good amount of power for the entire Eastern seaboard. Not only that, it’s one of two towers that provide telecommunications between the East and West coasts. This is, quite frankly, one of the most important connectors in the world.”

 

Jon feels his shoulders stiffen. “Why isn’t it protected with a Panoramic Gate?”

 

“I’m afraid you’d have to ask Columbus that. It’s under their jurisdiction.”

 

So, no answer then. Jon sighs. What can he do? This team isn’t the Sioux—they didn’t sign up with the knowledge that death would most likely be the final outcome of their time here. But they _are_ soldiers. And he understands why Sid’s asking this of them—not because he wants to, but because they’re the only ones who _can._

“Cincinnati is about three day’s travel for the Penguins.” Sid continues on. That’s fast, but then again the Penguins have always been known for their speed, travelling light and quick. The Blackhawks contrast them completely, armed to the teeth but slower than tectonic plates. “You can contact us via radio at any time if needed.”

 

He pauses. The silence weighs down calamitously on Jon’s shoulders.

 

“Whatever you find there… send out the report on the all-channel. We’ll want to broadcast it to all the cities.”

 

Jon swallows. “Right.”

 

“It was good hearing from you, Jon.” Sid ends, softly.

 

“You too, Sid.” Something hard and painful claws up his throat, and the words come out a little broken.

 

“Thank you, Captain.” Q puts in, leaning over the table to be heard through the intercom. “We’ll keep you updated.”

 

“Thanks.” The feed cuts off.

 

For once in the relatively brief period Jon’s known them, the Blackhawks are entirely without noise. Not even the erratic tapping of Shaw’s foot, or the rustle of fabric from Saad as he fidgets. Jon chances a glance at them—the horror and shock is fairly par for the course. Everyone here was alive for the Seige.

 

Kane, Jon notices, is entirely unreadable.

 

“Captain Crosby brings up a good point.” Q begins. “We’re one of the only teams that have the equipment needed for repairs of this magnitude. And I don’t just mean in technology—a fix like this will take a long time, and we’re one of the largest active teams. Having you gone for that period of time would be trying for a lot of cities, but fortunately we’ll have the Hogs while the team is away.”

 

Jon hears Shaw whisper under his breath _, “How long is he talking?”_

 

He doesn’t need to turn around to know it’s Hayes who answers. _“Do you really want to know?”_

 

“I’ll warn you all now,” He starts, ominous. “This is perhaps the largest undertaking this team has ever had, and it won’t be easy.”

 

 

• * •

 

Jon was alive for the _Siege_ , although he wasn’t yet at an age to be particularly knowledgeable on the subject. Like the rest of the world, there’s little he knows about the event itself; there was no logical way for the Risen to have managed to get inside the city—to find a way around the panoramic gate. The world will never know what, exactly, happened once they made it inside, or how they did it, when there isn’t a single soul alive to tell the tale. What he does know is the _aftermath._ Winnipeg locked itself in titanium steel arms, the sun vanished from the sky in a metal dome, Jon’s mother barely let him go to school, let alone out of the house, and every night a lone, shrill alarm sounded in the distance, enveloping the entire city in one, long painful cry. Terror enveloped the city—enveloped the _world—_ and draped itself over every house, every face.

 

Jon remembers the drills in school with as much clarity as he does David’s open, curious face when he asked him _why._ What was the point in all these safety drills when it wouldn’t matter anyway, if the Risen manage to get into the city?

 

To this day the period of his life haunts him in the gloaming hours. It’s not the Risen, who he has become intimately acquainted with over the years, it’s not the infinite wastes expanding around him, the hollowed eyes of soldiers gathered in the dust, the solitude nor the silence—it is the fear which lingers in the back of his mind, which grips him when he’s at his weakest. That collective, sentient fear which maundered through the crowds, through his _family,_ giving way to an overwhelming helplessness.

 

The sky flitters with light like broken glass, burned into a resolute shade of sickly green. The sun has long since set, but the atmosphere glows with the remaining light, even though the earth will never feel its warmth. Hearing from Sid again awakens a dormant part of him, a part he pushed aside in the years in the wastes, or perhaps just learned to exist with and ignore.

 

It’s weird to think of Sid, now, and not just in the abstract. He’s a living, breathing being that doesn’t just exist in the fragmented memories Jon has of his first war. He’s not just some moving image of a man with a tender face and a benign smile, doesn’t just belong in Jon’s head. Sometimes it feels like that, though. Feels like the Olympian Wars had never happened, aside from in his memories.

 

He wonders if those memories had arisen in anyone else during the meeting. He knows for sure that Sharpy had been in it, on the other platoon from Winnipeg. Duncs, too. He knows there are a few Hawks who had fought on the American side. He wonders if they’re thinking of the same weeks he is—when nothing but death was a permanent fixture in this world.

 

He thinks so deeply he almost doesn’t notice Kane climbing up the wall behind him. Almost.

 

Kane is soundless in his movements—Jon’s observed him enough to notice this—not even a breath out of place as he vaults over the wall and lands silently. It’s almost unnatural.

 

But people say that a lot about Jon’s hearing, too.

 

“Are you allowed to be here?” Jon asks to the air in front of him, if only to acknowledge that Kane didn’t get the drop on him.

 

He can almost hear the disappointment in his voice. “Is there clearance or something?”

 

“No.” Jon answers. Kane settles beside him, tossing his feet over the ledge in a move that seems boneless yet he still manages to make it look graceful.

 

They stare down together for a moment, watching the proceedings of the engineers from their vantage point far above. The _Elephant_ is the largest vehicle in the Blackhawks army; a giant open-faced house of metal that Jon imagines wouldn’t look all that out of place next to aircraft carriers. It’s certainly the same size, at any rate. Currently it’s being packed with supplies for the journey ahead, maintenance crews flittering around the giant hunk of metal like ant colonies, the service crew hauling boxes and equipment into it’s interior.

 

“We’re going in that?” He asks, pointing to the Elephant with his toe.

 

Jon nods.

 

Kane pauses, thinking. “That’ll take a long time.” He notes.

 

“The Elephant itself is a little bit faster than a tank.” Jon agrees. “And, weighed down with all this stuff…”

 

“A _really_ long time.” Kane amends.

 

“Probably, yeah.” Jon returns. Not as long as two years, but in comparison to most of the missions the Blackhawks take it’s practically a lifetime.

 

“You’re not afraid.” Kane observes, startlingly on point. Though Jon supposes if he’s been nearly as invested in him as Sharpy makes him out to be, he’d know enough about Jon to come to conclusions like that.

 

Or, he and Kane really are that similar.

 

He turns to assess Kane fully, intent on finding the answer. “Neither are you.” He replies, with no small amount of surprise.

 

For someone who was the sole survivor of a Risen attack, who’d watched those people in the convoy be eaten alive and then found himself in a city where he knew no one, entirely alone, he was strangely unperturbed by the idea of returning to the wastes.

 

“Well, I don’t really know Chicago.” Kane points out, wry. “I haven’t been here long enough to grow attached. I could see myself, though. …It’s really nice here.” He pauses, a distant look to his face. When he continues though, it’s gone. “But you… you’ve been here for a while, right?”

 

“A few months.” Jon grunts. And that’s nothing when he thinks about it like that. He likes Chicago, sure, but it’s not _home._

Not for the first time, he wonders where _home_ is. Winnipeg? In a lot of ways it was. His parents are still there. His brother is there. He grew up there. But Jon hasn’t felt a serious connection to Winnipeg nor his family since he left for war—since he left for war and never came back, too changed to return to his family life, too jaded by what he saw to ever feel comfortable sitting for dinner and making polite small talk, to settle into bed and pretend to have quiet dreams.

 

He thinks that perhaps the wastes _are_ his home. He was never comfortable there in the way he was in Winnipeg as a child, content to roll in the grass and chase after butterflies and walk with his guard down. But he’d found a solace, out there in the ether, that he’d never found anywhere else. An inner peace that existed as much in him as it did in the dust beneath his feet.

 

“I’m a little excited.” Kane confesses, quiet, like a secret. “Not about what’s happening in Columbus—but, a journey like that in the wastes…”

 

Jon sits upright at that, wonders if somehow Kane could read his thoughts off the expression of his face. But Kane’s not looking at him, his gaze lowered towards the proceedings below.

 

For as much as Kane rubs him the wrong way… a lot of him seems to fit perfectly.

 

“Yeah,” Jon agrees, just as quiet. A confession of his own. “I know what you mean.”

**4\. Silver Lining**

The day of their departure is greeted with a dark cerise tinge in the sky, spreading calamitously against the weak yellow of the sunrise. This early, the stars and the broken moon are still visible in the opposite spectrum, set in a long smear of purple: the remnants of the night.

 

The stratosphere is an overwhelming presence above him that Jon can’t overlook.

 

“We can’t delay any longer?” He asks Bowman, just outside the locker room. The other Hawks are still weirdly quite, serious and silent with the upcoming mission, and the noises from the dressing room are starkly quieter than normal. Jon hopes they can’t hear him all the same.

 

Bowman sighs, shaking his head. “Afraid not. If we wait any longer… the world needs to know what happened to Cincinnati and Columbus. We’re the only ones who can give them that answer.”

 

Jon bites his lip, but says nothing in return. He knows Bowman has a point.

 

But he can hear TJ all the same, singing softly as they trek through the mountains, “ _Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning.”_

The sky bleeds with warning, cries out to all that will listen. Unfortunately, it’s not in any language the Blackhawks understand.

 

Well, none but Jon, anyway.

 

He suits up, taking longer than strictly necessary packing what he believes are essentials. He’s a little surprised to see Saad watching him intently, the rookie flushing when Jon catches his eye.

 

“Sorry.” He stutters out. “I just…” He scratches his head. “You’re the only one that’s been out there for a long time.”

 

Jon nods, a silent assent to continue.

 

“I know I’m new.” Saad begins, shaking his head as if he was struggling to put together the words he wanted to say. Finally, he seemed to come to some sort of conclusion. “Well, yeah. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. I’m new and I have no fucking clue what’s out there. They can train us all they like but it’s nothing like the real thing, right? I wanted to know what you think is crucial to bring.”

 

Jon pauses, a little impressed with the directness of it. They might make something out of this one, yet.

 

“Water. And an air filter. That’s what you need to give priority—if we’re separated, if something goes wrong, those are the things you won’t be able to live without.”

 

He nods seriously, moving to take out some of the contents of his pack. Jon stops him on one, though.

 

“Keep the flamethrower.” He cautions.

 

Saad peers up at him, curiously.

 

“You’re going to want that.”

 

Saad blinks.

 

Between the enormity of the towering steel walls that surround the city, and the rippling surface of the Panoramic force field exists a small, unsubstantial rim of dirt and ash. From this dirt valley large steel towers erupt out of the earth, picketed with barbed wire and armed with cannons after cannons—the crowning glory of these structures are the, domineering, hollowed missile outlets perched atop the metal roof. Jon shudders visibly when he looks at them; the tangible reason for the state of the earth.

 

Jon doesn’t think Chicago has ever once fired a nuclear missile. He hopes they never have to.

 

In front of him, on the opposite side of the valley, the Elephant sits beneath the canopy of metal that signifies the mouth of the gate, loaded heavily with supplies and surrounded by ant-like mechanics, flittering about for last minute touch ups. The vehicle in and of itself is enormous, yet the jaws of the gates still manage to dwarf it, so tall that Jon can’t even make out the top from his vantage point. The sight never fails to humble him. The tangible reminder of what keeps them safe—the pillars of humanity, as many call them.

 

The convoy’s journey starts without so much of a hitch, despite the warning from the sky.

 

Jon refuses to let his guard down however, standing watch at the forefront of the elephant, where Sharpy and Shaw have taken roost. The crew ambles beneath them, talking quietly on equipment and mechanics. Aside from that, the wastes are entirely silent. Jon can hear Duncs tell a horrendous joke to Kane—the real unfortunate part to this even is how funny Kane seems to find it, laughing uproariously. It distracts Jon for but a moment, and while his eyes glance towards Shawzy’s gun goes off. He startles in the direction; a lone Risen drops a couple thousand yards away.

 

“Nice shot.” Sharpy whistles low.

 

Jon scowls: how is it that Kane only needs to exist to constantly obliterate his concentration?

 

“So Captain, want a turn?”

 

Jon directs his full attention to Sharpy; refusing to let Kane distract him. Sharpy gestures to the turret gun mounted onto the head of the elephant. It’s not the only one; each corner has at least two, and rows of them line the front. This one, however, they’ve been modifying all morning to allow for magnification.

 

Jon shakes his head. “Have at it.” He waves in a vague salute of farewell, leaving them to it. He’s not up for the company.

 

Instead he drops low, onto the elephant’s shoulder. Here he can tangibly feel the wheel shaft crank beneath him, the mechanic heartbeat of the engine lulling him into a false solitude. It’s isolated enough by the large metal side of the front that he can’t see the rest of the convoy, can almost pretend he’s alone out here.

 

He’s not sure why the idea sounds so appealing.

 

.

 

He finds the spot again as dusk settles, after gamely running through the motions of a routine checkup. He’s the captain, so he supposes it’s his job now. The responsibility still feels uncomfortable against his shoulders, like a shirt that fits too large, made from a material too heavy. His soldiers are down in the bay, eating dinner and basking in camaraderie. The Hawks are real people—funny, sociable, _likeable._ Even if undoubtedly it’s too late for him, he hopes they don’t change.

 

Jon settles into the arm of the elephant as the last remnants of the cold sun burn at the edges of the far mountains. He was right—a storm brews opposite; a tenebrous lamination of sprawling darkness. He hopes they avoid it, or it fizzles out before it reaches them; the last thing the journey needs is a visit of acid rain.

 

He closes his eyes and listens to the world around the elephant, tunes out the droning of the gears beneath him and turns his attention towards the insignificant sounds of the desert. He imagines the Risen beneath them, cowered by the enormous, terrifying quakes of the elephant as it ambles above them. Hopefully it’ll be enough to keep them at bay.

 

There are some out on the surface, however, hunting for whatever sparse prey they can find, or perhaps picking up the scent of humans and following in hopes of a meal. A few bands come close, hugging the outcrop of rocks to the far left of the elephant, but make no move to come closer.

 

 _They’re intimidated._ Jon notes with satisfaction. Sometimes it’s nice to have the grandeur of a legion, as lumbering of a beast it may be.

 

They’re no real threat, but Jon readies his bow anyway.

 

Rolling the arrow over his shoulder brings him a satisfaction he hasn’t had in a long time. The fluid, instinctive motion of settling into position, slowing his breathing until he can count the beats of his own heart, the minute shift and panning of his muscles. He aims for the far one, a good couple hundred meters away.

 

He counts the lift of his shoulders, _one, two, three,_ squints into the distance, and then releases.

 

For a moment, nothing. There’s no loud clap of gunfire, no recoil into his collarbone or anything near as grand. The sight of the figure soundlessly crumpling into the dust is gratifying enough.

 

“I didn’t know you practiced archery.”

 

It’s Kane. Of course it’s Kane.

 

Jon pivots to glance back at him. The blonde perches on the slop of the elephant’s arm, squatting with his elbows on his knees and appraising Jon with a look undecipherable at present.

 

“No one does.” Jon returns flatly. There’s no point in denying it—it’s no great secret. There’s simply never been any use for one with the Hawks. They have an infinite supple of bullets and no need for the silence of a quiet kill.

 

“You’re pretty good.” Kane notes, no significant inflection to his voice. He narrows his eyes into the dusk. “I’d say that was… four-hundred meters or so? Impressive, without a scope.”

 

Jon shrugs. “We didn’t use snipers in the Sioux.”

 

“No?” Kane blinks—perhaps with real curiosity.

 

“Too much upkeep.” Jon points out. “Too much noise.”

 

“That’s true.” Kane rubs his chin. “I hadn’t thought of that. A noise like that would attract too much attention for a platoon of that size.. and you’d run out of ammunition in no time. Two years, right?”

 

“Something like that, yeah.”

 

“That’s a long time away from home.” The blonde appraises mildly. “A long way from supplies.”

 

“We had to make the most of what we had.”

 

“Makes sense.” He nods. “You know, they say you’re the best shot in the platoon—even better than Sharpy. Probably ‘cause you’re kicking it old school.”

 

To be quite candid, Jon doesn’t particularly want to know what they think of him.

 

Kane smiles: half his face is covered in shadow, the other lit cold with the haze of the sky. “Can I try?”

 

This makes Jon pause. Eventually, he shrugs. “Have at it.”

 

Kane leaps down, far too excited. He moves to stand beside Jon, so close Jon can feel his heat, like a tangible wave off his skin. It gives Jon pause for a moment, as he hands Kane the bow.

 

Kane looks at him curiously. “You know you’ll have to teach me.” He raises a brow, holding the bow with a grip that makes Jon silently weep. Kane’s right; he’ll sooner shoot himself in the foot with a grip like that.

 

He sighs. “Alright. Do exactly as I say.”

 

“Aye, aye, Captain.” Kane smirks. Jon takes a silent moment to pretend he doesn’t exist, if only for his sanity.

 

He turns to stand behind Kane, lightly moving his arms into position. Something about touching him makes all the hairs on the back of his neck stand, makes something tremble in the back of his brain. He’s not sure what, but it sets him on edge— a flashback of Kane and his bright eyes, lying in Jon’s arms, Jon’s thoughts overpowering everything else _why is he still alive?—_ his grip faltering as he sets Kane’s elbow.

 

Kane looks at him curiously; Jon accidentally meets the gaze of his luminous eyes, draws his own back down hastily to Kane’s grip.

 

After he’s settled the blonde into a position that isn’t entirely appalling, he hands him the arrow.

 

“You wanna pull it back—just like that… no, keep your elbow _here_ —“ As obnoxious as he may be, Kane is a quick study, dexterously moving to Jon’s quick adjustment, pliant underneath Jon’s fingers. He’s quite clearly talented.

 

“Alright.” Jon stands back. “Ready?”

 

“I think so.” Kane responds in a quiet breath, as to not jostle his position.

 

“Good.” Jon nods. He scans the horizon. “Now pick a target.”

 

There’s a good cropping of Risen out on the cliffs, probably curious at all the noise but with enough self-preservation to keep far away.

 

He sees Kane take a deep breath, takes another and, with his breath held, releases the shot into the distance.

 

It takes a moment, but Jon sees a figure, far off on the tallest cliff, farthest away, drop backwards. He blinks. A perfect hit—dead center in the face. Most likely bypassed right between the frontal and temporal lobe. At this angle, a perfect death.

 

Somehow, this isn’t nearly as surprising as it should be.

 

Kane laughs delightedly. “Ya see that?” He grins, and suddenly looks far younger than he has any right being with a shot like that. Stupidly, Jon is fascinated with the dimples—blindsided by their existence, maybe. They’re so… normal, for Kane to have. Jon refuses to believe there’s anything normal about Kane.

 

“I bet I could beat you.” His grin turns sly. “Come on, try one. Any one. Tell me which to shoot.”

 

“This isn’t a competition.” Jon scowls.

 

“Why?” Kane looks over his shoulder, smirking. “Don’t want it to be?”

 

He feels his competitive nature lurk beneath the surface, but refuses to give in to it, no matter how much his mind wants to betray him and beat Kane into the dirt. Jon skewers him with a flat, impassive look instead. “We’re wasting my arrows.”

 

Kane pouts, put off. He opens his mouth, but is cut off by a voice from above.

 

“Great fucking shot, Kaner!”

 

They both look up. A few of the Hawks are gathered at the top of the arm, wearing a variety of expressions that all equal out to impressed.

 

“Man, how did he even see that?” Shaw whines, squinting deeply. “I can’t see anything out there.”

 

“It is pretty dark.” Hoss agrees. “You’re a natural, Kaner.”

 

Kaner laughs depreciatingly, rubbing the back of his head. “I’m sure that’s not true… beginner’s luck and all that.”

 

This modesty surprises Jon, but he doesn’t comment. His attention is focused out on the wastes. They’re right; it’s long past dusk, a thick, breathtaking blanket of gossamer stars paint the sky, but nothing aside from that is particularly discernible. But when Jon focuses on it, the lining of the cliffs begin to flesh out in more definition, he sees the movement of the Risen as they crawl among the rocks.

 

It’s pitch black, Jon notes, with stunned disbelief. It’s an abyss of darkness out there, and yet he peers into it and sees the truth.

 

He almost misses the end of the conversation, and Kane turning to him to return the bow. The visage jolts him out of his thoughts, and his gaze fixates on the blonde in front of him. For some reason, he feels like Kane has come to the same realization he did, but there’s no considerable surprise to his face.

 

Jon _sees._

_._

 

But so does Kane.

 

• * •

 

As Jon suspected, the aftermath of the red dawn came inevitably. Acid rain pours down on the elephant with the seething hiss of metal against burning liquid. The ground itself shivers with the unnaturalness; a warped miasma drifts like a silent wraith over the dead lands, a great calamity of indiscernible color and size. Jon feels like he can smell it, even with his respirator. The air turns heavy and thick, crawling against Jon’s shoulders. Involuntarily, he shivers.

 

The Hawks and crew are huddled in the Elephant’s interior—they fare worse off than Jon. Quiet coughs make their rounds among the people gathered together—the only noise in the relative silence of the vehicle, aside from the splattering of rain and relentless hum of the engine.

 

Perhaps he’s only grown accustomed to it: the Sioux had their fare share of corrosive rain, sometimes with cover still miles away. The Hawks, for the most part, don’t know quite what to do with it. It doesn’t rain in the cities—the sight of falling droplets rushing to the ground in legions of burning water perturbs most of them. The ones who have experienced before watch the proceedings with indifference.

 

Jon looks around: the crew fare the worst, pushed into the back and grasping at their masks, huddled under blankets like shivering lumps of cloth. Directly in front of them are the rookies, shaking with an unknown fever, clutching at their rifles as if the metal could defend them. After that, closest to the end of the awning are the more senior Hawks, Hossa, Duncs, Sharpy, idling just out of reach from the splatter of rain, murmuring quietly among each other.

 

It is cold: so very cold. Like a desolate hand which crawls up his back, Jon feels ice from his boots to the back of his neck. Out of his mask whorls of mist curl into the rain.

 

There is a sudden moment of stillness; the rain slows into a rhythmic pattern, the hissing ground slides into white noise, and the labored breathing drifts slowly off into the atmosphere—a shift beside him. Jon moves deftly; allows Kane to crowd into his space. The blonde fits himself easily, the arch of his shoulder snug against Jon’s. Jon has a brief moment to wonder about that, before inevitably his thoughts move to the owner of the shoulder in question. His mind flips back to his first observation of Kane, in recruitment, and after, catching sight of the markings on his arm.

 

“How long?” Jon asks, attention caught with the rain—refusing to look at Kane.

 

“Huh?”

 

“In the army.” Jon elaborates. “How long were you in the army.”

 

“How do you know I was?” Kane retorts, defensive.

 

“It’s not an easy thing to miss.” He points out, finally turning to look at the blonde. A frizzle of tension lingers in the space between his brows. Jon wonders at it; it’s not anything to be ashamed of. If anything, he’s surprised Kane hasn’t bragged about his experience—it would fit his personality well.

 

It’s weird, but then, a lot of things about Kane don’t make much sense. Jon lowers his voice, “You don’t have to tell me.”

 

Kane looks away. Jon turns back to the rain.

 

“A year.” He bites out. “With the Knights.”

 

“London?”

 

“Yeah.” Kane studies his gloves. “Just the one year… after, we moved to Edmonton.”

 

“That’s far.” Jon notes.

 

Kane sighs. “We couldn’t stay in London. It was… we just couldn’t. And anyway, Edmonton was safer.”

 

Jon nods. Sensible. Cities in Canada are better protected mostly because of environment. Risen have a difficult time in the colder climates, even with their elevated body temperature.

 

“We?” Jon asks.

 

“My sisters and I.” A brief smile flickers over his face. “I have three. Erica, Jessica and Jackie. The best fucking kids you’ll ever meet.”

 

Something about his dedication to his family makes Jon smile back. He and David are close, in that way two emotionally distant people can be: a relationship of silent solidarity. But he’s never been particularly close with his family, not after the war. It was… too difficult to relate to them after that.

 

“You should tell me about them.” He’s not sure why he insists upon it, but he’s glad he did. Kane’s face lights up, and he starts speaking avidly about them. Like a sudden flicker in his eye, some trick of light, Jon sees how Kane so easily integrated himself into the Hawks. Erica’s in nursing school; she’s the oldest, and the most vocal. Often she commandeers the Kane brood as if _she_ was the eldest. Jessica is just starting her first year in college—apparently she has this boyfriend Kane’s not fond of because he rails on the guy for almost half an hour—and, Kane whispers conspiratorially, “ _She’s the one who gets me the most.. we just, get each other, y’know?”_ It’s clear, however, that he loves them all equally. He’s most protective of the youngest, Jackie, whom he constantly fusses over and worries over her young age. He hadn’t wanted to move her—afraid of what that time travelling in the wastes would do to her—but had ultimately decided that living in the safest place was best.

 

Jon doesn’t overlook the lack of explanation on his parents.

 

“Do you miss them?” He asks quietly, when Kane’s monologue has begun to lose some steam. It was a long winded procession, however: the rain has calmed into a speckling drizzle—most of the Hawks have moved off for dinner.

 

“All the time.” Kane replies, immediately.

 

Jon wants to ask what he was doing in that convoy—why go to Chicago at all, why _leave_ them at all—but in the end, he can’t force the words out of his mouth.

 

A part of him almost doesn’t want to know.

 

Because—

 

Jon bites his lip, scowling fiercely into the distance.

 

Because he’s starting to like Kane, is the thing. Starting to be genuinely pleased that he ended up in Chicago, somehow, by whatever arbitrary hand of fate had tossed his convoy out to the Risen and forced him to leave his family, and he wonders why he cares enough about Kane to have an opinion on his existence in the first place. He will only admit it in the farthest prefectures of his mind, but the attachment concerns him. Worries him, even.

 

( _Scares him, in a way nothing has ever managed to elicit the emotion before)_

• * •

 

Also corresponding to Jon’s first advisement, Saad does end up needing the flamethrower.

 

The elephant has crawled to a halt, a great beast of steel squeezed between towers of dilapidated rock. Jon traversed this canyon before, recalls the difficulty the Sioux had with the hordes of Risen that called the craggy terrain home, even with their superior skill and swiftness. The Blackhawks, he thinks, ultimately have the easier time of it—if not the longer.

 

A large gathering ambushed them some miles into the canyon, causing the party to stop and defend. Duncs and Seabs enjoyed a merry time on the turrets, spending the majority of the skirmish arguing over who had the most headshots. The clear winner was Sharpy, with one hundred forty-five—however, this was a bit unfair, considering he was ‘ _the sharpshooter’_ for a reason. Also, he was using a bolt action sniper rifle, and had the best vantage point.

 

That being said, the clear winner of this battle—to the surprise of everyone but Jon it seemed—was Kane. Jon found himself legitimately impressed by Kane’s dexterity with a blade. The weapon hadn’t seemed a suitable choice for the blonde at first—he’d imagined Kane would gravitate more towards a light semi with a bayonet—but when Jon thought back on it, it made a certain amount of sense. He moved quick and graceful, but it was the facilities of his hands that truly caught Jon’s eye. There was an artistry to it, the deft swivel of the blade as Kane ducked under the swing of a Risen, slicing clean through that one and in the same motion moving to fell another four. He wielded the blade like an extension of the self, something Jon had never quite managed to master, and truly had no fear with his incredibly close style of combat.

 

But the Hawk who had the most fun out of the whole ordeal was undoubtedly Saader. That being said, Jon wasn’t entirely sure how you _couldn’t_ have fun with a flamethrower of that size.

 

The weapon also had the benefit of sterilizing the whole area, and scaring off the rest of the Risen from returning. For now, at least.

 

“Why do they hate fire so much?” Shawzy wondered aloud, as the convoy basked in a moment of rest, idly watching the bodies burn.

 

Saader shrugged. “They’re animals? Animals don’t like fire.”

 

“Are they animals?” Hayes cut in. “Do they think like us?”

 

At this, all three of them turned to Jon, as if by some silent agreement of the entire team Jon had become some sort of almanac on Risen.

 

“Yes and no.” He decided upon, at great length. “It’s foolish to underestimate them. They are smart; in a way. They hunt in packs, they know to look for stragglers and what paths to follow. In that regard, they _are_ a lot like animals. But don’t be fooled… there’s human in them.”

 

Kane is watching him with large, undecipherable eyes. Jon catches his gaze, across the vehicle where he sits upon a tower of crates, cleaning his blade. He holds Jon’s stare and doesn’t look away.

 

“How so?” Hayes asks, curiously.

 

Jon tears his eyes away from Kane. “They communicate. Underneath us they have intricate cities of rock that they live in—the kinds of architecture only humans are capable of. There’s a hierarchy to their kind.”

 

“Do they talk?”

 

Jon frowns. “Not in any way that I can tell.”

 

It’s hard to explain all he knows about the Risen in such simplified terms to the wide-eyed youngsters of the Hawks. How to convey all his time in the outlands, running from them, hiding from them, hunting them, and even observing them. The brief opportunities where the Sioux had a safe vantage, and Jon would take first watch, eying the Risen with a naïve curiosity that had never truly left him. Their incredibly human mannerisms, forms of affection, gestures… sometimes Jon wondered how different he and they really were.

 

Well, there was always the fact that Jon didn’t eat human flesh.

 

He shakes out of his reverie.

 

“Tell the driver to start the engine.” Jon commands to Hossa, closest to the door. “We’re not going to want to stay here much longer.”

 

“Why’s that?” Shawzy pouts; he looks genuinely upset that he won’t be able to watch the carcasses burn.

 

“The fire will only scare them off for so long.” Jon explains. He grimly turns to look at the far wall of rock, where dozens of caves mar the surface. “Then they’ll smell the remains, and come for us.”

 

Shaw loses interest in the fire quickly after that.

 

 _For revenge,_ Jon thinks, but doesn’t say.

 

That’s a human quality, too.


	2. Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings, Disclosures, and Copyrights at the bottom

5\. The Journey

The sun sets in a long streak of light against the bedrock, hanging crooked in the blemished sky; a lifeless presence which only ever seems to serve as a marker for cycling time. Jon dozes lightly in the mechanical walk of the Elephant as he watches its great descent—he never truly sleeps out here, but the rhythmic beating of the engine beneath him manages to lull him into a contemplative reverie. 

His thoughts drift slowly with the sun; the rocks begin to cloister together into formations that seem vaguely familiar, as if Jon had studied them before in a half-remembered dream. But here, bathing in the opalescent, watery sunlight Jon is content to let the thoughts maunder past him, to mingle into the dying stratosphere. 

A lurch surfaces him from his waking dreams; a slight hitch in the slow roll of the Elephant. Then another. And another. 

Jon peers over the edge of the Elephant’s swooping arm. Train tracks.

His eyes narrow back into the mountains, besieged in a misty blue film. 

Familiar indeed.

He climbs off his perch, sliding back towards the upper balcony, where Sharpy and Shaw are dawdling idly by the turrets. Shaw is crouched with his arms tucked upon his knees, scowling something fierce at some cards strewn about his feet. Sharpy cackles loudly above him; like a large, triumphant crow. Crow himself squats close to Shaw—as usual, his expression is one of vague amusement. 

They straighten up as he approaches their line of sight (or rather, Crow and Shaw at least attempt it, Sharpy doesn’t even bother) but he bypasses them to stand to attention by the far corner. Jon props against the railing and tugs his scopes off of his belt. A bleak, deadly blue mist sloughs away at the distant mountains, obscuring most of the landscape from view. Jon rifles through his scopes until he finds one with more clarity. 

“Something out there?” Shaw asks from behind him, uneasily.

Jon makes a noncommittal noise. “Fort Wayne.”

Shaw and Crow exchange a look.

“A chemical deadzone.” Sharpy explains, when it becomes clear Jon refuses to remark on the matter. “Back before the Panoramic Gates, the city tried to use chemicals to keep Risen out.”

And then, with a snort, “But, in the end, it killed them off too.”

The haze crawls towards them—or perhaps, them to it—like a towering bluff of rolling storm clouds. It engulfs them all with a terrifying silence; the idle sun, the steady landscape or rocks, even sound, perhaps, is lost within it. It leaves only a filtered gloom in its wake. It divulges closer, moving as one enormous, sentient being, and engulfs them in one fell swoop. All at once a muffled, chaotic cacophony of beeping erupts from every passenger on board as the toxicity levels soar through the roof. 

Whatever brief, light-hearted banter that had settled among the Hawks this lazy afternoon disappears with a whimper, and the envoy goes still in the dooming silence.

“Is it safe?” Shaw whispers.

“It’s unavoidable.” Jon returns, squinting into the shroud. He continues to rifle through his vision specs; heat is manageable, although the chemicals often interfere with his readings and the shapes are rather difficult to discern. His night vision only seems to refract against the light particles and make it worse. 

When he finally finds one that does work, a haunting scene blooms before his eyes. Magnetic vision only allows for sight of ferromagnetic materials—iron the predominant metal the scope picks up. 

Remnants of human terror lay broken in the looming fog; thatched barbed wire and the near prehistoric remains of landmines, the rock scarred with the bitter end of electric currents and large pikes of metal, all procured as mechanisms to keep Risen out. Jon imagines the people of this city, so afraid of the Risen that lay just beneath the surface, roaming in the mountains around them… willing to turn to anything to keep them out.

Even what started this whole mess in the first place.

“Is this going to kill me?” He hears Hayes some ways below him, in something that sounds vaguely like a whine.

“It smells like old cheese.” Hammer adds, in what is definitely a whine.

Someone elbows him, and he squawks. It’s Duncs. “Be thankful you can smell it at all.” He speaks, ominously. “The worst ones are the ones you can’t.”

The whining dies down at that. Though he doubts any of them have seen it in person, Jon has to make a conscious effort not to think of his first-hand accounts at watching people die slowly to the chemicals, eaten alive by the atmosphere. 

Jon’s attention snaps back to the mists as movement draws his eye. Their presence has attracted an audience. Through the haze of his own vision he sees the mangled figures of Risen, banked against the side of the train tracks. They make no discernible moves closer, hovering like dilapidated shadows amongst the broken outskirts of Fort Wayne.

He frowns, and zooms in closer. Jon has become intimately aware of the likeliness of the Risen body to their human ancestors; their limbs and muscles, while hardier and better suited for their radical environment, retain the same structure as the human body. A healthy risen will look much like a healthy human—well, in regards to spatial construction, at any rate. The figures huddle in groups among the remains of barbed wire fences have silhouettes like puppet corpses, dangled limply on the horizon line. With the fog rises the sound of death—

Silence.

—and in this false blue sea Jon sees them drowning. As if in a smothered dream he sees the hanging faces, like a devil’s sick skin, and hears the corrupted lungs bleed out blue blood. 

He lurches to the side, drops his binoculars and holds his hands against the sides of his face, as if to remind himself of his own mortality, protected blithely by a thin strip of cloth. His head throbs with an unknown pain. He feels as if he can hear their mournful cries in the ringing silence, but that’s impossible; the Risen are soundless. 

Jon knows what Nature can do upon itself—but what humans can do, he fears even more. 

“Trouble?”

Jon straightens, recognizing the voice immediately and wonders how Kane always manages to see him at his most vulnerable. He fears it’s quickly becoming an innate talent of the blonde’s. 

“No.” His voice shakes, and he valiantly makes the effort the control it. 

Kane looks out into endless nothing, a frown marring his brows. Jon wonders if he’s thinking on the same things: the things men did or felt they had to do. In the end, what humans do out of fear—it is the most catastrophic thing he knows. Jon shivers, involuntary: in his ears is a sorrowful sound he can’t shake, distilled with despair. Like the howls of the Risen grasp for the throne of god and beyond, making a circle with no end and no god. 

• * •

The blue mist crawls along the bedrock and festers on the horizon long after Fort Wayne has come and gone; a prowling, sentient wraith that stalks with a quiet calamity. The envoy occasionally breaches through it as they travel down the train tracks—and though each time it does Jon grows cold with a foreign terror, as if the ghosts themselves take roost in the fog, it keeps the Risen at bay. Even they know not to go to close. 

This mist, Jon thinks, it protects them. Even though Death himself lies in it.

In the gloom it’s difficult to discern watery daylight from the weak night sky, and Jon lays in his stiff cot for hours, counting rhythmically in his own head in hopes for sleep. There’s a ringing lingering in his ears that he can’t get rid of, crawling around at the base of his skull and leaving him feeling restless and somewhat disoriented. He wants to go up to the turrets and haul Sharpy off the graveyard shift, if only for something to do, but he feels sluggish and out of sorts and knows he’d be useless. 

Finally, after passing most of the gloaming hours in a haze of frustration, he leaves his bed and wanders up to the top of the ship. 

It gets worse up here.

The ground around them is besotted with a thick, impenetrable mist, seeping into his very pores, rolling along the balcony and crawling up Jon’s legs. His head feels clotted and heavy, and what vague outlines he can see become completely indiscernible when his vision doubles. It hits him so suddenly he doesn’t have time to prepare.

He staggers inelegantly, pulling Sharpy’s attention away from guard duty.

“Tazer?” His alternate calls, worriedly. Jon can indistinctly make out a mass in front of him. Is he on the ground? When did that happen? Smoky blue hands wave around Sharpy’s head, or maybe that’s the mist. Jon is having trouble telling which is which. 

“Jesus Tazer,” Sharpy curses. Even that is difficult to discern; the persistent ringing has grown into one, long, cacophonous shriek that diverts all his attention. “Can you hear me? Tazer?”

There’s more sounds, muffled with the unbearable white noise. 

“Jon!”

And then there is a bright light in his eye.

It burns; then it is enveloped in shadow. This process runs through a few more times, until Jon fully comes to and recognizes the indistinct mass of shapes and color as the hanging light in the doctor’s station, shaky with the movement of the elephant. The team doctor is some ways away, poking at his computer. Jon cranes his head to look down; aside from a slight twinge in his neck, he doesn’t appear to have any injuries. He sits up slowly, palming the side of his head. It hurts, still; there remains an impenetrable and mostly obscured noise in the back of his ear, but it is muted. The moment he processes where he is his muscles seize up in what he refuses to call terror. 

Trepidation, perhaps. Nothing good ever happens in hospitals, at least not in his experience. He makes a valiant effort not to be reminded of similar sights as the one he sees now; jumbled torture chambers in their hundreds of thousands. A hospital alone shows what war is. 

“That was quick.” The doctor intones, catching Jon’s attention. He looks vaguely amused. 

“I’m sorry?”

“You’ve been out for about…” He looks down at his watch. “Fifteen minutes. Are you feeling better?”

“I have no idea.” He answers, candidly. He doesn’t’ feel any better—but to that end, he doesn’t even remember feeling all that bad. It was just… so sudden.

“Any idea what set you off?”

“No.” He answers again, just as frank. His very bones seem to itch just by being here. 

The man frowns; Jon wants to skitter away from the concern on his face. “Has this ever happened to you before? I checked your records; everything checked out okay… but we don’t have any files on your time with the Fighting Sioux.”

Jon shakes his head. “I’ve never… no. Never.” 

It’s evidently confusing the doctor, but it’s just as bewildering to Jon as it is to him. This has never happened before. He has no idea. 

The doctor hums. “It might just be a concussion. Do you remember hitting your head on anything?”

Jon scowls. He hasn’t gotten injured in a fight since… well, perhaps since the Olympian wars. But it’s not like the doctor would know that. “No.”

He doesn’t look sold. “Well, I want to keep you overnight for observation—just to be safe.”

Jon’s head snaps up. “What?” He blinks. “No. I can’t—I’m not just sitting here when my team could get attacked at any second.”

“I think they can fair without you for a few hours.” The doctor reminds placidly, but he doesn’t get it. Jon may not have been part of this team for very long but already he feels a possessiveness over them; an urge to protect them that even he knows is somewhat irrational, considering the caliber of the Hawks. Not to mention he’s never held his health in any legitimate regard, or hospitals and orderlies, and he’s not about to start. 

“That’s not…” His eyes steel. “I’m Captain. I’m not just leaving them out there by themselves.” 

He moves to get up, but the doctor stands in his way. He scoffs; as if there is any legitimate way this man could keep him here—

“My god, are you always this unruly?”

Kane leans against the doorway, arms folded with a look of great exasperation upon his face. 

He rolls his eyes. “Don’t worry doc, I’ll look after him—and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

The man looks infinitely relieved at that, nodding and compliantly allowing Kane to take his place in the room.

“What’s your beef with doctors, anyway?” Kane asks once he’s left, eying the door. “Sharpy says you have a personal vendetta against all the nurses in Chicago, which, like, all the nurses are hot, how can you even do that?”

“What do you want, Kane?” He asks, resigning himself to an insufferable amount of time in the other man’s presence.

Kane turns to him with his omniscient, reproachful eyes. Even more so than with the doctor, Jon wishes he could find a way out of that gaze. 

“You gonna tell me what happened up there?” He asks, finally, after it seems like he spends an infinity and a half wrenching open Jon’s soul and inspecting the contents. 

“There’s nothing to tell.” Jon replies, and even to him it sounds vaguely petulant. “I just—I had a headache.”

“Don’t bullshit me.” Kane narrows his eyes. “I was up there with Sharpy—“ of course he was, because Kane always has to miraculously appear exactly when Jon wants him least, “—and I saw what happened. You were fine and then… you just weren’t. And you were clawing at your head like you were trying to open it.”

He was trying to open it, if only to let out all the noise and reprieve himself. 

“It was nothing.” He protests, despite clear evidence towards the contrary. “It was a really, really bad headache, okay? A… a migraine, I guess. I thought that going up and clearing my head would help, but there was that mist and I just…”

“Yeah, not your best call.” Kane notes, wry. “You know that stuff is toxic, right? Like, kill you in the most painful way possible in a heartbeat?”

“I know.” He responds, vexated quite suddenly. He knows this intimately. 

“And that just because you have a mask on doesn’t mean you’re completely safe?”

“I know.”

Patrick shakes his head, genuine bewilderment coloring his face. When it becomes clear that nothing will get accomplished here, he sighs. “Just… take it easy, yeah? The doc’s right—stressing yourself out is stupid. And you could be feeling effects that just aren’t picking up with the scans right now. No one really knows what that shit could be made of, yeah? Better to just rest.”

“I’m not sick.” Jon says with a note of hysteria. Because he refuses to believe that. Humans don’t get sick. Not anymore, anyway. And the only way someone gets sick is…

He looks away, unable to stomach this conversation. Unable to stomach this everything. His eye catches on the biohazard sign tapered on the plastic lining of the waste bin, and suddenly, its all he can see, everywhere in the room, slapped onto the sides of cupboards and drawers, on a discarded bag on the counter, the pamphlet next to it, it’s a looming presence on an impenetrable sheet of plastic and there’s a man coming towards him in a hazmat suit, his hands are covered in blood and he’s shaking his head, saying, “I’m sorry, son, he’s not gonna make it, he’s got it—“ but that can’t be true, Jon saw him yesterday, he was fine, he’s struggling out of a grip someone’s got him in and he can hear him on the other side of the plastic, a constant, retching wet cough—

“Jon!” 

Patrick is so close Jon can’t help but focus on the blue of his eyes and it startles him so much he jolts his head and rams his nose into Patrick’s cheek. 

“Fucker!” Patrick yells in retaliation, leaping back as if burned. He’s got both hands covering the bottom half of his face like Jon just contaminated him. “Did you just kiss me?”

“What the fuck?” Jon shouts back on instinct. “No!” 

Patrick’s eyebrows are doing a crazy dance and Jon leans back and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand in horror and it comes back a little wet and oh. Maybe there had been some contact.

“That wasn’t—“ He sputters. “You scared me and I just—

“And ow, fuck, do you sharpen your nose with a welder or something? Man, I could shave with that thing it’s so sharp!” He whines, rubbing at the side of his cheek, where its starting to turn red.

“Serves you right, you fuck.” Jon scowls, fiercely. He can feel his cheeks flushing, and it’s the worst. “Why the hell would you sneak up on me like that? That’s fucking—“ Dangerous, he thinks but doesn’t say. His reflexes are not something to test like that. Especially when he’s on edge just by being here and getting distracted and trying to suppress everything he wants to forget. 

Gradual understanding emerges on Patrick’s face, and he stops looking unduly disgusted. “Oh. Shit, sorry about that.” He doesn’t look apologetic in the least—however, he does look vaguely sympathetic. “Are you alright? You were really… out of it for a second there.”

“I’m fine.” Jon answers, stiffly. The feeling of drowning and hysteria rises slowly in his chest, but isn’t as overwhelming as it had been prior. His eyes move vacantly towards the biohazard sign again, but this time all he feels is a poignant sense of loss. Kane can be a surprisingly good distraction from his own inner demons, Jon thinks with resigned fondness. 

Patrick’s still in front of him, hands loose at his sides and a face marred with the worst kind of sympathy possible, a calamitous knit to his brows that Jon wishes could turn into something else, something Jon actually knew how to deal with. 

“I was just…” The words cotton up in his mouth. His throat works, but nothing comes out. He looks at Patrick again, a silent, understanding presence. “I get these memories and I just—“

“I know.” Patrick interrupts with great mercy. “I get it. There are some things that just… yeah. Yeah. I get that.” 

His words are soft and vague, but Jon doesn’t doubt the sincerity of them. Doesn’t doubt that Patrick does get it, even though he has no evidence to prove this. 

“Jon…” Something twinges when Patrick says his name; a knee jerk reaction of some kind. Jon has the unfortunate, inopportune reaction of meeting Patrick’s eyes in that moment; they are soft, and bright with something unspoken. Filled with something Jon isn’t sure he wants to hear. 

Whatever lit up in Patrick’s eyes dies on the tip of his tongue the moment he opens his mouth to speak. The blonde shakes his head. “I stand by what I said. Rest up. You won’t do much good up there like this.”

Jon opens his mouth in a reflexive protest.

“Anyway, it’s not like we need you much.” Patrick waves him off. “With this mist crawling around… it’s not good for anything, you know?”

Jon knows. They’ve breached the area surrounding Fort Wayne, and even though they’ve long passed the remnants of the city for miles after the aftermath lingers. And even the Risen aren’t immune. He knows it’s not a coincidence there hasn’t been a single firefight since they’ve crossed over. 

“Yeah.” Jon sighs. “I know.”

For a moment, Jon sees him deliberate, and wonders if he’ll go for it. He does, faltering slightly, wrapping deceivingly pliant arms around Jon’s shoulders, briefly, before pulling away.

“Get some sleep, okay?” He says it like maybe the world will fall to pieces if he doesn’t.

Jon nods. 

“I’ll try.”

• * •

It’s not all that easy.

His dreams are as desolate and as alarming as his reality. The wastes have ruined him for everything; even in sleep it is a mysterious whirlpool, and though here he is far away in stiller waters the abyss of the vortex sucks him in slowly, irresistibly, inescapably into itself

(himself)

and there’s not much he can do to stop it. Everything he lives to forget congeals together into indiscernible shapes, color, and lines; portraits in movement, free brushstrokes of light and shadow. His family, unsmiling between the mines, gas, the rapid pitter-patter of machine guns. His family and their house and their yard, an allotted, sickly little thing that his father placed a tree in, bought from the garden store. There is a distance, a veil between them now; unmoving. He wanders here like a stranger in the indistinct landscape of his youth. He is carefree no longer—he is terrifyingly indifferent. 

It is a restless sleep.

He tosses and turns for many hours he thinks, it’s hard to tell with the lighting of the room. Every time he turns over his dreams shift, dragging more horrors out from the back of his mind. 

Eventually, in the early waking hours, he drifts off one final time, and the colors that drip down from his lids are familiar. Inviting.

There is the desolate earth and its embracing, quiet rapture, painted in his mind with the shifting smudges of the Sioux. Here he finds himself as a shuddering speck of existence, but among them he belongs in the soft solace of this place. This is the only thing, he thinks, just to sit quietly. Nothing stirs; vacant and dispossessed, like an empty man, he sits there and the past withdraws itself. 

He wakes. 

The ringing is gone, but the remnants of sorrow remain. 

6\. Sympathy for the Dead

Even though they’ve migrated onwards some time ago, and crossed barren borders and followed battered roads, Jon still feels shaky in the aftermath of his episode. He refuses to call it anything else—refuses to think of it other than in the abstract, for the most part—and his team knows better than to call him out on it. Except Patrick. Of course Patrick, who fights him on every turn.

The mournful, sorrowful ringing in his ears still haunts him in his less distracted hours, when he has nothing else to focus on. But it’s dim, nothing but a shadow of its former cacophony. He repeats this constantly to the team doctor, who mostly looks unimpressed and vaguely alarmed. Jon’s long since resigned himself to being the subject of incredulity when presented amongst medical staff, and doesn’t take this to heart. He knows himself (of this, he’s at least fairly sure) and his limits, and they haven’t been reached yet. 

That isn’t to say his balance hasn’t been a bit… thrown.

In the tenebrous days leading up to their eventual destination, Jon is constantly compensating for the indeterminable shift in his equilibrium. It’s nothing particularly obvious, not even to himself, and if he hadn’t collapsed he wouldn’t have noticed. Patrick notices. But again, Patrick seems to be the only exception for every rule he has. 

This disorienting feeling of loss throws him into bouts of deep introspection, and he spends the days as a morose figure crouched at the highest peek of the elephant. He feels safest here; cold, tired, but enveloped with the vantage point of everything within distance. Sharpy seems marginally annoyed that Jon has besieged his sniper roost, but it’s a testament to how worried he is—how worried all of them are—that he makes no great scene of it. 

After a day or two of this introverted pattern Patrick finally seems to grow weary of it enough to mulishly break through the cycle. He plants himself as a stubborn figure on the opposite side of the elephant’s shoulder, staring vehemently in the opposite direction. He doesn’t make any moves to talk to Jon—doesn’t even go through the motions. Or at least, he doesn’t for some time, staring sullenly into the watery distance. 

It’s just past dawn when Patrick clamors up to his self-imposed exile, a petulant look already in place. He settles himself directly next to Jon, sprawled out with his feet tangling off the ledge and pressed so close to Jon that he can feel the heat of him all the way along his thigh. 

“What are you thinking about?” He asks into the silence, willfully, like a pouting, rebellious child. 

“Nothing.”

That’s an obvious lie.

Patrick makes a face, ornery, obviously moving to pressure Jon for a more appropriate answer.

It’s like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. Jon is clearly the immovable object in this case, if only because he simply doesn’t have the energy to be the unstoppable force. Kane, of course, has plenty of that to spare. 

“You can tell me.” His voice loses some of its edge; it’s clear he’s attempting another tactic. There’s a sincerity of his eyes that Jon doesn’t want to see, and he contrarily keeps his gaze focused on the indeterminable horizon. They’re both being obstinate little fucks, but he refuses to lose ground. Immovable object, and all that. 

Kane swallows. “Is it about…” He hesitates. “What happened in the doc’s office?”

Of course it is, and of course Kane knows. 

Jon still doesn’t respond.

“Is it about… the Sioux?” Kane hazards. “The Wars?”

A muscle clenches involuntarily in his jaw, and even through his mask it’s obvious to tell. 

Kane raises his hands, defensively. “It’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it.” He throws out. “I just… I think it’s clear that you probably should though, man.”

“There’s nothing to say.” He remarks, resigning himself to his fate with Patrick Kane an unfortunate and unrelenting force constantly working to upend his life. 

All his carefully crafted boundaries, all his walled silence, swiftly and easily bowled over by this stupid blonde with stupid hair. He shoots a baleful glance at it—one half of his head looks run over by a freight train, the other is sticking straight up. He’s not sure how Kane manages to make that look appealing. 

He sighs. “It was a long time ago.”

Kane jumps on the opening. “How old were you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Were you drafted?”

He shakes his head. “Volunteer.”

Kane turns to look at him, all of that powerful gaze focused on him. Jon refuses to return it. “What was it like?”

He doesn’t know what to say to that. 

How would he explain it to Kane, someone he hardly knows? He couldn’t even explain it to his parents, whom he loved so dearly, couldn’t find a way around the besotted veil that fluttered between them, muting everything like an unending distance. But Kane knew of terror, of this Jon was sure of. He could see it in his eyes, a familiarity he saw in his own embittered reflection.

Yet still, he couldn’t make the words leave his mouth. 

How was he to explain how he felt then, on the front lines, surrounded by boys dressed as men, all at once terribly alone? He could not picture the war in any cohesive manner any longer: it had long ago descended into fractured movement and light, the sounds and noises of fear, brief flashes of clear, scintillating memory—the smell in the trenches, the slow procession of the train to the front lines, stopping intermittently to let off the dead (it stopped a lot). The rattling of a truck beneath him and Sid’s face concernedly leaning over him, doused in shocks of light, the explosions just distance glimmers of light on his cheeks, so far away they could have been fireworks. His comrades a shaking line of men in the valley of death, so small and insignificant compared to the innumerable amount of Risen at the bottom of the valley.

“Long.” He says, lamely. “Lonely.”

He shakes his head. “Why don’t you just ask Sharpy?” He scowls. “Or Duncs, or Seabs. They were all there too.”

A stubborn look crosses Kane’s face. “I wanted to ask you.”

Jon can’t think of anything to say in response.

“And the Sioux?” Kane presses. 

Not for the first time Jon wonders what it is about him that attracts Kane so much. It’s certainly not a want of company: Jon is woefully inconsiderate company and a moody shit on the best of days, not to mention Kane is in no shortage of demand when it comes to camaraderie. Half the Blackhawks are constantly in a rotation of his court, and the other half has just yet to realize there is a rotation. He’s not the only survivor of the Olympian wars here, and his stint in the Sioux is alarming to most, not fascinating. 

Suddenly, his patience evaporates into the murky air. “Is there some purpose to these questions?” He bites out, a little too sharp.

A brief look of hurt flitters over Patrick’s face, before he masks it with a nasty scowl. “I was just trying to help.” He mutters. “There’s something clearly not right with you—you’ve been acting strange, and like more of a dick than usual, an you won’t talk to anyone and—

“What does it matter?” Jon retaliates, physically attempting to dislodge himself. Kane doesn’t even let him do that, grabbing him by the leg and holding him in place with a surprisingly heavy grip. 

“Can’t you just tell me what’s wrong?” Kane shoots back, not bothering to answer. 

“Nothing’s wrong—

“That’s bullshit.” Kane cuts him off. “Something happened. Something in that office, when you were practically having a panic attack. You were remembering something. ”

Jon flushes. “I was not having a—

But Kane waves him off. “And it’s clearly bothering you, so I think you should talk about it. And none of the bitches here have the balls to shout at you enough to get you to open up, so, here I am.”

“Great.” Jon scoffs, sarcasm palpable. 

Patrick’s brow furrows with worry, and Jon makes the ill advised move of catching his gaze at this unfortunate moment. His mutinous resolve crumbles with the genuine concern in the blonde’s eyes. 

“Is it from the Wars? The Sioux?”

“Both.” Jon bites out. And then sighing. “Neither, really. It wasn’t about them, not directly. It was about—

He swallows.

The aftermath.

He can’t pull his eyes away from Kane’s. The blue of them are like anchors into his soul and Jon can’t find it in him to struggle. He feels the memories dislodging and working their way up his throat, even when he tries to pull them back down. Kane must see his internal battle but he doesn’t make a move to help him, only watches: calmly, reassuringly. 

“They don’t—“ His throat works, dry and uncomfortable. “No one likes to talk about it—not even the guys, really—but in the Wars, and in the Sioux… we had to put a lot of people down.”

Kane blinks his wide, beguiling blue eyes. 

“You look…” He fights with himself on this—as he has been ever since he first laid eyes on Patrick Kane, since he’d seen his lifeless form tossed out into the dust and turned him over to see his face, the unnatural, burning blue of his eyes— “In the Sioux, there was this guy. A good friend of mine. We’d traveled for years together, so I guess that might be a bit of an understatement… we were more like brothers, really. We all were.”

Pack, he wants to say. They were like pack. But he doesn’t think Kane would understand. He doesn’t want to see the look in Kane’s eyes when he says it, when he tries to describe the relationship he had with his team. The look people always give him when he tries to explain his time in the Sioux. They look at him and think of 

(Risen)

unnaturalness, of strangeness, and of things unknown. In Jon’s experience, nothing terrifies humans like things they don’t understand. 

And Jon is something they don’t understand—not anymore, anyway. 

“Anyway—I guess what I’m trying to say is that we were really close. Closer than I remember being with anyone else. Not because of anything on my part; he was just that kind of guy… always up in your space, really friendly…” He doesn’t want to remember this: he suppresses it every time he catches Kane in his peripheral, and the knee jerk reaction to turn around and smile at him. Because in those brief moments he doesn’t see Kane at all.

“And one day, we heard a distress call on the radio, near St. Louis. They were having a huge skirmish with a local Risen population—we went down to help.”

He takes a deep breath.” And, and TJ—“ His voice cracks on his name, even when he willed it not to, as if to this day he can’t say his name without carrying the remorse. “He got hurt while were fighting. I saw it happen—he was right next to me. But he said he was fine… It wasn’t until afterwards did we see it.”

“He’d gotten slashed by a Risen right here—“ He motions down his chest. “The skin around the wound had turned black, and, and it had started to bleed this silvery color, almost blue. It hadn’t been a regular injury. He looked sick—he hadn’t looked like TJ at all, he was so pale and—“ He takes a deep breath. Kane’s eyes lingering on him, enraptured; riveting. “They kept trying to take him into Quarantine and I kept fighting them on it—I knew what happened when they took you in there… But in the end I couldn’t stop them, and…” He falls off, looking away. 

He’d seen the tattoo on Kane’s shoulder—and though he hadn’t been able to recognize a certain team, he knew Kane must be as intimately acquainted with the quarantine as Jon was. 

He’s briefly besieged by a memory from not too long ago—was it really only a few days?—of the Blackhawks posted up on the side of a dirt pass, Hayes’ open, curious expression as Hossa donned a hazmat suit and went to dig up the remains of a Risen out of Duncs’ tank. He sharply remembers his bewilderment at Hayes’ innocence—at his lack of knowledge on the Risen, and what they do when in contact with a human body. It’s more than just a quick decay; it’s a rebirth into something not entirely human. 

Kane bites his lip. “Did he…?”

“I’m sorry, son, he’s not gonna make it, he’s got it—

Jon shakes his head. “I don’t know. But he didn’t make it out.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.”

Jon shrugs. “People don’t like to talk about it—I can’t imagine any of the guys talk about the things they saw in the War… not even just on the battlefield. The worst of it, I think, was off of it. In the trains off the front, in the hospitals.”

The blonde is unnaturally quiet, a tragic expression on his face that Jon doesn’t quite understand. 

“No one likes to acknowledge it.” Kane agrees, quiet. 

Jon nods, staring off into the far horizon. The sun burns through the clouds and the mists, and lights the sky on fire as it falls. 

“You look a lot like him.” Jon confesses, softly, and it feels sort of like letting go of a sin of some kind. 

Kane blinks. “Uh…” He scratches his cheek, an odd look overcoming his face. “Thanks, I think?”

“But your hair isn’t as dumb.” He adds, for the sake of honesty. “Well, not entirely.”

“Thanks.” Kane repeats, acerbically. 

A peaceful quiet blankets over them. Or at least, Jon finds it rather peaceful. He feels… at peace. He hasn’t told anyone about TJ in a long time, and it almost feels good to find someone else who understands. Some of the older veterans on the Hawks understand, those who fought in the wars. What it’s like to lose someone important. But most of the men he fought with in the Olympian wars were much older than him, and hadn’t returned to the disconnect that he had. They had other lives off the front, things in their past with meaning: cherished things. At the age Jon had been thrust into the carnage he hadn’t had much else besides brief, scintillating memories of childhood and a handful of pipe dreams. Nothing tangible to hold onto. Nothing tangible to relate to, when he’d returned as a lost and indifferent man.

Though there were some who had connected with him, who were just as lost. He distinctly remembers the first time he’d met Sid, on the bitter cold winter front in Vancouver—an almost overlooked presence among the other domineering captains. In physical stature he hadn’t been all that much smaller than Iginla or Pronger, but something about the wideness in his eyes, and the color in his cheeks bellied his youth. But there was no denying the steel in his brow or the grim cut to his mouth—and the sharpened gaze of a hardened leader. 

Still, beneath all the flinty exterior Sid had been, in a lot of ways, infinitely less mature than Jon. The years of solitude and war had changed Jon irreversibly—but they had changed Sid more. Although he was only a year older than Jon, he’d spent twice as long as Jon in the fray. It was most obvious when they had down time, and the other boys their age would talk about their homes, and the girls they were sweet on. Sid didn’t seem to have a girl or a home—or any apparent past at all. He had a way of drifting almost perfunctorily through conversation, connecting depthlessly with his peers and engaging with evident disassociation, unless on the field. But for a boy so estranged from his constituents Jon had always found a silent camaraderie with him.

He’d found that in TJ too, the first day he’d met him, down in the fronts along Washington state. He’d been the first American Jon had fought with—and Jon will still swear to this day, the most obnoxious. And later, they’d connected even more so, when they’d met eyes on his first day with the Sioux, and a spark of familiarity had lit between them. 

“Say,” Kane begins quietly, effectively breaking through his memories. “Could I ask you a question?”

Jon steers his gaze back to the blonde.

In a lot of ways, Kane reminds him remarkably of Sid. But Kane’s mask isn’t of frigid impassivity—it’s his visage of a buoyant disposition and pleasant good-naturedness. Beneath all that, Jon thinks, he’d find the real Kane. He’s caught glimpses of him so far, in a handful of collected moments when Kane’s attention has been diverted elsewhere, but its not enough to discern anything genuine. 

But whatever lies beneath Kane’s veneer, Jon seems to inherently connect with. 

“Sure.” Jon replies, distracted by his thoughts. 

There’s a lot of TJ in him too, Jon thinks. And he doesn’t think he’s projecting. Kane is much too different from Washington native—for one, TJ’s buoyant and exuberant personality had never been a fraud. He was just genuinely that annoying. And for another, there’s a darkness to Kane that haunts his eyes. Something that Jon never managed to place. 

Kane’s large, incandescent eyes burn into his. “Why did you save me that day?”

Jon blinks. Stupidly. “What?”

“When my envoy got overtaken by Risen—you could have left me for dead.”

You should have been dead. Jon thinks, hysterical. He hasn’t forgotten that day—nor has he overlooked all the happenings since. 

“Why wouldn’t I have?” Jon retaliates with, feeling cornered and cross. Kane has no right to ask these questions—not when Jon has so many of his own. 

Kane’s eyes are piercing and solemn. Jon doesn’t want to look at them. “…Was it because of your friend?”

“…What?”

“You just told me I looked like him.” Kane points out, which, true. “And you seem to have a lot of unresolved tension abut him… So I guess I just want to know. Was it?” 

“Would it matter if it was?” Jon retorts, defiantly. 

He shakes his head. “No, no.” His smile is wan and fragile—and Jon isn’t sure how it got like that, or how to fix it. “I would understand.”

Kane shifts his weight onto his knees, plants a hand by Jon’s leg and moves onto his feet. Something feverish breaks over Jon, and his stomach twists as Kane starts to leave. 

“It wasn’t.” He blurts out, before he can stop himself. Kane stills.“It wasn’t because of TJ. I mean—I would do anything to go back and stop that from happening, but I can’t. And… it wasn’t because I saw him in you, or something stupid like that. I saved you because… because you deserved to live.”

Kane stops and blinks strangely, almost incomprehensibly. 

When Jon finally summons the courage to catch his gaze, he’s a bit surprised with the soft look in the blonde’s eyes. 

Kane clears his throat artlessly. It’s a strangled sort of half-chuckle, which almost evolves into full laughter. “I… deserve to live?” He shakes his head. He’s laughing, and smiling, but Jon can see a certain sadness in his eyes. “That’s a new one. …I don’t think anyone’s ever told me that.”

“Well why wouldn’t you?” Jon retorts, flushing slightly, embarrassed and now feeling even more cross because of it. “Everyone deserves the chance.”

He shrugs, breaking his gaze and looking into the distance. “And if I have the capacity to give someone that chance… why wouldn’t I?”

Something bright broke across Kane’s face at that, his smile honest, dimples and all. “Oh, Jon!” He teases, miming swooning. “My true hero! Saving me from death!”

Jon scowls, feeling his cheeks heat up. “Shut up.” He gets up as well, brushing past Kane as the blonde continues to laugh. Jon’s not even entirely sure why he even bothered to tell Kane. Or what he even meant by it, honestly. It was true, something had moved within him when he’d seen Patrick lying out there in the dust, but he still didn’t know what it was. But it surely hadn’t been any festering regret that had spurred him into movement. 

It had been… something else.

Still scowling, he turns around to see if Kane is still mocking him, but the mirth seems to have long since left the blonde. He stands as a flickering form against the tumultuous sky, the impotent sun dousing half of him in gold, tossing the other half into shadow. His eyes to glow with the color of the blooming night sky above him—whatever levity had been there before had fled, and left nothing but remnants of a smile around his mouth and a look of deep rumination. 

His instincts had never failed him, and now they were telling him that Kane’s jesting had been a ruse to hide his true thoughts. But Jon wondered what it was about his words that could have brought upon such serious consideration. 

 

 

 

7\. Immortality

The tower is overrun.

The tower is overrun—and his head is splitting open, the ringing back tenfold, and he can hardly think of anything else, the noise overtaking all of his senses. 

He gets a grip on himself. He’s the fucking captain here. He can’t let a headache get in the way of that. 

Behind him the Blackhawks are surveying the carnage as well, voices clamoring loud over each other. This is… this is probably the largest conglomeration of Risen he’s ever seen—since the Olympian Wars, at any rate. Still, it’s not any kind of sum to overlook. It’s fortunate that the Blackhawks are such a heavily offensive team.

“I want lines one and two with me!” He shouts over them. With all the Hawks quieted like this, and even the elephant stilled, the cacophony of hundreds of Risen fills the valley. It’s unnerving, he knows, especially to the guys who haven’t had the experience of fighting off thousands of Risen churning out of the sea. 

“Bicks—you’re in charge of lines four and five.” Bickell nods, stern. “I’ll take my squad up through the side entrance; you come in once the Risen at the main opening are taken care of. We’ll meet up again when we’re inside—comb through the tower and see if we can find any survivors.”

He turns to the defense. 

“Duncs and Seabs,” He tilts his head at them, and they both move towards the tanks without any need of further direction. “Leddy and Hammer in Warthogs, Oduya and Brookbank in the turrets.”

The four gear up and move off to the enormous vehicles.

“Crow, Raanta and Khabibulin, you’re the last line of defense. Raanta and Khabibulin stay on the elephant’s turrets and Crow—

But Crow was already balancing an RPG on his shoulder. 

“They’re in there.” Kane whispers; his eyes are wide and grave. Jon can barely hear him above the din.

“What?” He asks, turning away from the group and to the blonde to his side. 

“The Blue Jackets.” Kane’s not looking at him at all; his eyes are focused on some indeterminable spot above in the tower. “They’re in there. And they—“

He swallows, and someone in the bay of the elephant calls down to him and catches his attention, just for a brief moment. His head snaps down, it’s Leddy, he thinks, or maybe Hammer, gesturing out of the window of the warthog. Jon can’t hear them at all—not over the sounds of both tanks, the whistle of Crow’s launcher, and the turrets going off simultaneously.

“What?” He shouts down at them. 

Hammer says something else, but Crow’s shot inevitably hits, and the sound it makes is catastrophic. 

“Sides!” He finally hears. “What sides?”

He points Hammer to the left, and Leddy to the right. 

Jon turns back around, ready to keep interrogating Kane—

But he’s not there.

He’s not by Jon’s side. 

No, he’s leapt off the side of the elephant and is barreling into the legions of Risen, the spray of turrets and backlash from the rocket launcher showering above him. 

“Fucking—“ Jon curses.

“Kane!” He shouts, even though he knows its futile. “Get the fuck back here!”

But it’s a universally acknowledged truth that whatever Jonny wants, Kane will always do the opposite, and the blonde tears his way through the teaming crowd of Risen, until they’ve completely overtaken him.

He feels stuck between a rock and a hard place. The unstoppable force meets the immovable object, and he feels himself in freefall. 

Jon hopes he remembers this night—maybe not as the night they fixed the tower, but as the night he completely lost his fucking mind. The tower spirals above him, endless metal hands grasping ineffectually towards the sky, wire-like veins drooping around the stars as they fell from the arms of the steel structure. Risen scourge the surface beneath it, a moving blanket of black in the moonlight. 

“Goddamit.” He sighs, even though he already knows he’s made his choice.

He jumps down the side of the elephant. It’s absolute chaos down here; the ground shakes as both tanks unfurl on either side of Jon, the sky lights up with every shot Crow takes, and the Warthogs wreak havoc on the enemy lines. 

He looks up to find the offensive teams staring blankly at him.

“Jon!” Sharpy shouts, moving to the edge. “What the fuck are you doing?”

He shakes his head—and he knows the moment Sharpy realizes, because a look of suspended disbelief and downright horror grapples onto his face. 

“Keep formation!” He shouts behind him, as he runs into the chaos. “Shaw, you’re on first line! Saad—stay with Duncs and Seabs and guard the elephant!”

“Jon!—“ Sharpy calls after him, but he’s already ducked into the horde, taking down Risen as fast as he can.

He cuts a line through them in record time, slicing through the mob and making for the front entrance. It’s completely upended, and inside his head, if possible, splits wider. He grits his teeth through it, battling off the haze with the reminder that Kane—the fucking moron—is in here somewhere by himself. 

He plows onward at the thought, moving on autopilot. The elevator shaft is a hive of Risen, and he fights his way into the stairwell. It’s a ridiculous uphill battle, even with the handful of grenades he throws into the crowd behind him there still seem to be thousands left crawling towards him. He reaches the top and looks back down—there’s no way that’s the whole tower. It takes him up a few flights until it tapers off into another hallway, and Jon scowls. Of course the architect of this building had multiple stairwells. The hallway up here is startlingly quiet, pitched in black aside from a lone, flickering light hanging limpid off the ceiling. 

The storm in his head quiets and he catches his breath, moving quick and silent through the room. 

A noise startles him into action. A lone Risen digs through a pile of supplies, halfway into a dilapidated closet with its back turned towards Jon.

The Risen turns, and gives him a cursory glance with its large, decrepit eyes. They glow alarmingly in the moonlight. He’s almost stunned into inaction as the creature turns back to rummaging through the remains of a storage unit, completely ignoring him. Almost, but not quite. He raises his M4 and takes it out with a single shot. 

He has no idea where he’s going—the inside of the tower is pitched in an inscrutable gloom, the no other lights seem to be working, and only the slight shafts of moonlight offer glimmers of the area surrounding him.

It doesn’t matter. The place is a rat maze but he takes turn after turn, runs up a flight of stairs—takes out a mob of unsuspecting Risen at the top—and keeps going even though he’s not entirely sure where he’s going. It doesn’t escape his notice that the amount of Risen has dramatically decreased the higher he gets. The radio’s gone haywire up here, his team vague sounds over white noise, he has no idea where they are but he plows ahead. They can’t be too far behind. He may have left them the mobs, but they surely have enough firepower to take out the numbers. Between Crow’s rocket launcher and Saader’s flamethrower, it shouldn’t take too long. 

He bolts up the stairs into another hallway; Risen lie on the ground, unmoving. Some look to have been dead for some time; others, freshly killed. He recognizes the neat, almost clerical cut of Kane’s blade as he runs past, and follows the carnage up another stairwell. 

The amount of dead grows as he enters a large maw at the top of the stairs—the ground beneath him is slick, with what, he doesn’t want to know. 

The building structure looks different here; he thinks he’s getting closer to the control room. He barrels down a barricade of tower equipment, raises his gun at the sound of movement—

And comes face to face with another man.

An entirely human man.

“Oh jesus fuck.” The man breathes—no, not a man, a fucking kid— keeping his AK5 raised at Jon.

Jon lifts both hands, gun facing away. “I’m a Blackhawk. My name’s Jonathan Toews.”

He doesn’t make any move to acknowledge him.

Jon scowls. “Look, I’m here to help. Would you please move the fuck out of the way?”

The kid blinks at him. “Definitely not a Risen.” He snorts, but complies.

The Blue Jackets seem to have posted up here for—for god knows how long. He’s amazed they even stuck it out up here, what with the mobs down below. He hasn’t forgotten Kane’s parting words to him—but like everything else about Kane, it doesn’t make much sense. He must have known somehow though. Must have known they were up here. He moves through a hallway jammed full with containers after containers of food, so clearly there was no shortage of that. He passes a reinforced glass window, and judging from the distance to the ground they’re about halfway up. Well, he surmises grudgingly, at least they won’t have to deal with an entire tower full of Risen.

His debatably good humor runs short when he makes it into the large control room. 

The entirety of the Jackets team is there, some a little more worse for wear then others, but he doesn’t have eyes for them, passing by them without a glance.

Kane is leaning against one of the tables, soaking the ground beneath him with blood. He hisses as one of the Jackets inspects the wound; a terrible mess of blood stains his shirt and masks the actual injury.

Jon feels his heart drop to his stomach. 

“Patrick,” He breathes. He doesn’t realize why it feels so odd against his tongue until he’s standing right next to him—has he ever called him by his name?

It seems to startle Patrick too, because his eyes snap up, wide and bright; but glassy, and surrounded by a face rapidly losing color.

He’s not sure how long he stays like that, staring numbly at the blonde and listening with terror as his breath rattles audibly between them. He tries not to look at the wound, but his eyes are drawn to it anyway. It’s—it’s bad. And not the only one. There’s a deep cut running through his shoulder, and an indeterminable mark crawling down his arm like a mangled bruise. It looks like…

Jon swallows.

It looks like a bite mark. He really, really hopes it’s not. 

“Hey, Tazer.” He says, like he’s not bleeding out on the tiling. Jon doesn’t even feel a twinge at the name—Kane could call him anything right now and he wouldn’t care.

“Oh, god.” He doesn’t want to look down, but he does. It’s less of a gash and more like an enormous, gaping wound. “You fucking idiot.” He whispers. “Why the fuck did you have to run in?”

As soon as he moves close enough Kane slumps onto him, and his forehead is hot, clammy and covered in cold sweat. Infection he thinks, hysterically. Would the wound be infected already? But Kane is burning up, and he has no idea what would have caused the fever aside from that.

“I could hear them. They were trapped up here.” He mumbles, into Jonny’s bare shoulder. “And I couldn’t just…”

He drifts off.

Jon sucks in a breath. “Kane?” He looks down. “Kane? Patrick?”

He makes a vague noise in reply. 

“Shit.” Jon curses, finally turning his eyes to the rest of the room. “Are there any medical supplies?”

“A couple bandages.” One speaks up. He looks slightly familiar; like someone Jon met years ago. “But nothing that could help with that.”

“Give them to me anyway.” He commands. 

The guy’s right; it’s really not enough to cover the wound—and definitely not going to stop much of the blood loss—but he can at least bandage up the other wounds. 

It could have been mere minutes, or maybe a couple hours, until the kid from before leads an array of Hawks into the room, Sharpy at the lead. 

Jon cuts to the chase. “How’s it look down there?”

“Duncs and Seabs brought out the tanks.” He says by way of explanation.

“Is it clear?” He retorts snappishly, in no mood for good spirits.

Sharpy looks taken aback, before he notices Kane slumped against his side.

“It’s clear.” He answers, moving closer. “Shit. Shit. Is he okay?”

“I don’t know.” Jon bites out.

Sharpy rounds on him. “What do you mean you don’t know—

“He fucking ran ahead of us—how the hell am I supposed to know what happened?” Jon snaps back. 

The alternate runs a hand through his hair. “Fucking fuck.” He says, eloquently. Hoss and Shaw aren’t too far behind, wearing equally shocked expressions.

“He needs a stretcher.” Sharpy murmurs, his eyes just as drawn to the injury down his side. The bandages are doing a piss poor job at covering it up. 

“We don’t have a fucking stretcher.” Jon retorts. 

There’s something definitive about the statement, and the moment he says it he comes to a decision. He wraps one arm around his shoulder, and ducks down to his ear. “Patrick, can you hear me?”

He doesn’t get much in way of a reply, a half-sort of muttering, but that may have been from the pain.

“I’m going to have to carry you.” He continues on. 

He slips another arm behind his knees and hauls him up. The blonde makes a noise of protest—he doubts it’s very comfortable—and Jon tries not to jostle him too much.

He turns to Sharpy, who gives him a slow nod, and then motions to Shawzy and Hoss. “We’ve got you covered.”

• * •

It almost feels like a death procession. As he figured, the Hawks made clean work of the ground floor. The tower is a tomb now, an enormous, steel sarcophagus. Jon can’t wait to leave it; and then never have to see it again. By the time they make it back to solid ground, Patrick’s breath is just a whisper against his neck, so soft it almost isn’t there. The hand underneath Patrick’s shoulder is almost entirely covered in blood. He probably looks a fright; covered in god knows what kind of zombie fluids, a dying Patrick Kane bleeding out on him. 

The ground outside was upended in the firefight, scars from tank artillery sheer through the rock; plagues of Risen lay in the interim, some still burning. Saader clearly enjoyed his flamethrower again. It’s a fucking massacre, and Jon picks his way through it, making for the opening to the elephant. 

They met up with the third and fourth lines back in the tower, and it’s just the defensive guys inside.

As they make it up the opening both sides of the team trades glances over Jon’s back, the entire vehicle stone silent, as Jon walks up the ramp into the mouth of the elephant.

“I need a mongoose.” He directs without preamble. 

Leddy nods and moves to find one out of the storage equipment. 

Duncs moves closer. “What happened to him?”

Jon shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

“Is he—?”

“I don’t know.” He grits out. 

Duncs falls silent. 

There’s not talking until Leddy returns with the bike. It’s not the safest, nor the quietest, and won’t provide an ounce of protection to either of them, and is also very prone to rolling over—but it’s the fastest fucking thing they have and he doesn’t have much time.

He maneuvers Kane in front of him, the blonde absolutely boneless and unhelpful in the process. Jon would make a comment about how typical it is of Kane to be as much of a nuisance as possible, if every vein and artery in him wasn’t terrified and shot with nerves. 

“Call Sid.” He orders to his alternate. 

Sharpy nods.

“Tell him, if possible, to meet us with a Hornet evac if he can.” Jon revs the engine, the vehicle coming to life beneath him. “I’ll be taking the southern route—and I’ll have the radio on.”

He nods again. 

“Be safe.” He bids in farewell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: Graphic depictions of violence and warfare. And zombies. 
> 
> And for people who have never played Halo, I borrow a lot from the franchise, mainly in the form of all vehicles...


	3. PART III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOOO THE END!! I didn't feel comfortable posting the full ending so here is the abridged: full is on my dw

**8\. Panoramic**

 

Sid meets them with an evac.

 

Jon can feel nothing but relief as the aircraft hovers above them, stirring up a sandstorm of dust in the process. The last hour of his life has been the most terrified he’s ever been—and he’d thought that honor would always go to his first real taste of the Olympian Wars, on the front line on the cold, rocky beaches of Vancouver, watching an unimaginable amount of Risen climb out of the ocean.

 

He was wrong.

 

Watching Patrick bleed out all over him, completely unable to even stop the blood flow because he knew if he took a hand off the wheel he’d flip them both over, feeling his muted breath grow weaker and weaker against his neck as the minutes laboriously trudged by—that was hell. He’d never felt so helpless, so _weak;_ not even when he had been nothing but a teenager and was thrusted into the forefront of the most unimaginable war to ever besiege humanity.

 

Sid drops from the sky before the Hornet even lands, racing over to his side—not too far behind him are two other Penguins. One turns back and catches a med kit as it drops down from the aircraft.

 

Crosby skids to a halt beside him just as Jon pulls both him and Kaner off the bike. Now that he’s gotten a chance to look at it fully, he can see just how hard he drove it: it’s a miracle it got them this far.

 

Sid catches half of Kane’s weight, and in seconds his teammates catch up to them. In a fluid, simultaneous motion one unravels a stretcher and the other begins to hook Kane up to an unimaginable amount of machines.

 

They hustle him to the Hornet just as the craft banks against the rock face, without even a backwards glance. Jon is grateful for their haste, however. He’s not sure how much longer they have.

 

Sid clasps his shoulder, directing him firmly but not commandingly with a brisk pace towards the aircraft. “How are you holding up?” He asks, neither sympathetic nor indifferent; rather, something in the middle.

 

Jon sighs. “I’ve been better.”

 

“I’ll say.” Sidney snorts, ushering him into the Hornet. The moment he’s inside the doors the pilot takes off again, and he lurches into the doorframe and grapples for purchase.

 

The Hornet is deathly quiet as it hovers over the ground, lifting off as silently as it’s shadow had fallen over him. Jon flops down onto the wall, heart pounding out of his chest. Sid gives him a reluctant once over, crouching down into his line of sight. Behind him, one of the Penguins is adjusting Kane’s stretcher, hooking the blonde up to a variety of machines.

 

“You okay?”

 

Jon doesn’t hear him at first, he’s too focused on the numbers crawling up the machine—and what they could possibly mean. Kane’s heartbeat is slow; but he didn’t need a machine to tell him that.

 

He shakes himself. “I’m good.”

 

Sid’s look is so consternated and so familiar he wants to laugh.

 

Fortunately, the Penguin’s Captain doesn’t badger him further after that, only nods and moves to the cockpit.

 

One of the other Penguin’s—Nealsy, he thinks he heard Sid call him—makes a resigned sound and flops onto one of the benches beside Kane.

 

“Nothing more I can do.” He tells Jon with a sigh. “We’re just gonna have to wait it out and hope your buddy’s one tough son of a bitch.”

 

“He is.” Jon replies, but feels his heart isn’t in it. Normally he’d have something sardonic to say in response; it’s true, though, Kane is stupidly tough. No one should be able to do half the things he does. But with him splayed out on a stretcher; tied up in an elaborate wrapping of bandages that sprawl over his torso, eyes closed and as still as the dead—he finds himself unable to believe that dodging death is something Kane can do.

 

But, Kane has unpleasantly surprised him with a magnitude of things Jon didn’t expect him to be able to pull off.

 

This time, though, it wouldn’t be so unpleasant if he did.

 

Nealsy gives another defeated sigh, before slinking into the back of the Hornet.

 

A tiny square of window casts filtered light onto Jon’s face, framing a bleak and desolate sky. A numbness has seeped into his bones and stalked its way into the cluster of his ribs, a paralysis in his heart. He can’t keep his eyes on Kane, doesn’t have the courage to.

 

He can hear him, though, the rhythmic beating of his heart. From the machine, and as an afterthought against his own. He can hear the blood, sluggish in his veins, and Jon is too weary, too tired to pretend any longer; to don a false, clinging human skin and pretend as if he can’t hear the murmurs of the men in the other room, the soft thrum of Patrick’s heart, the whir of the engine beneath them and, far below, the skittering of a spaceless carpet of creatures. Can’t pretend that he doesn’t have his own wonders on the boy he found in the wastes.

 

Patrick’s eyes flutter open; an illuminated coruscate of blue, unfocused.

 

Jon is by his side in moments, tiling the blonde’s face to his.

 

“Patrick,” He breathes. He feels as if its him who is lying open; him who is bleeding out.

 

“Hey,” Patrick drawls, weak and still forever doing his best to exasperate Jon. “You look like shit.”

 

Jon chokes on his bark of laughter. “Clearly you haven’t seen yourself.”

 

“Ah…” Patrick agrees, solemn. “That’s probably for the best.”

 

“How are you feeling?” Involuntarily, his hand finds its way into the soft curls licking against the side of Patrick’s head. They’re matted with dirt, grime and blood—some of which is Patrick’s. but most of which he doesn’t want to now the origins of. He feels somewhat betrayed by his own limb, but not all that surprised by it.

 

“Like I’m dying.” He jokes.

 

Jon turns to him, stricken. “Don’t…” His words die a still death at Patrick’s expression; regret and repose. He swallows. “Don’t joke about that shit.”

 

Patrick smiles at him wanly, as if he knows something Jon doesn’t.

 

“You can’t…” Jon starts, shakily, and finds he doesn’t have the courage to finish his thought.

 

Patrick turns to him and it is as if nothing in him is extinguished nor forgotten. In his expression is something inhuman: calm, constellated. Distant and saddened.

 

His hand flitters over Jon’s, and for a moment Jon just stares at his working fingers incomprehensively. It comes to him, suddenly, and he wraps Kane’s hand in his, as if somehow he could pull the vitality from his own flesh, drain it into the narrow chords of his blood.

 

He breaks like this: something about the moment ruining him.

 

Jon leans forward, resting his head against Kane’s. It’s hot—unnaturally so, and he’s abruptly and absurdly grateful that no one is here to witness this one moment of weakness, as his lips brush against Patrick’s. He keeps his eyes open, cannot bear to have them any other way, studies the fractal light and facets in Patrick’s unfaltering blue gaze. In his eyes of mourning the land of dreams begins: Jon never wants to wake.

 

He could exist forever in the quick and quiet pressure of Patrick’s lips, settling himself into diminutive indent of his bottom lip, a furious dream in a river of certainty.

 

But Patrick’s grip is weak—growing weaker, still.

 

He pulls away, hovering over the blonde. “Patrick?” He calls, stricken.

 

Patrick’s hand is a soft weight in Jon’s own, heavier as the time passes, as the silence between the beats of his heart grows longer and longer, indefinitely.

 

Belatedly, the cacophonic wail of the instruments erupts in his ears, and he stirs out of his reverie. Both of the Penguins are beside him, though he does not know when they came, shouting words that Jon feels he has forgotten the meaning of. The numbness has overcome him, and washed away his thoughts, submerged the sounds around him.

 

He looks down: Nealsy is tearing open the bandages around Patrick’s torso. The contents don’t look anything remotely human, as if Jon cannot connect what he sees to what he knows he fragments the sight into disassociated fractures of light, color, and movement. A clotting of acid brims into the starry divisions of glittering, running blood. The knife leaves little cathedrals; alcoves unguessed by the eye that open acidulous glass to the light. Irreducible, changeless webs of veins, like rind, the proportions arcane and acerb.

 

Neal pushes him out of the way as he and Malkin descend upon the patchwork of ruined vitality. He’s seen it before, many a time, and he wills himself to pull his eyes away: he cannot. A glimmering spear cuts; topazes riding the droplets, altars, crucial facades.

 

“Jon!” In a violent movement, Sidney pulls him away from the scene.

 

The enchantment is broken, Jon snaps into the anarchy of the room: Malkin and Nealsy are shouting at each other—though it appears they do not speak the same language at all (is that Russian?)—over Patrick, barking commands over the mournful wail of the machines. The tenor is unbearable; Jon almost wants to cover his ears. Instead, Sidney hauls him into the front, and though there is more space here, he feels as if all the air has left him.

 

 

• * •

 

 

Waiting for Patrick to wake up is hell.

 

The Penguins aren’t making it any easier.

 

It appears as if the entire team has come out of solidarity; they remind him a lot of the Blackhawks—mostly young, restless, and eager. And loud. They are incorrigibly loud.

 

The one next to him—Malkin—assures him in broken English that Patrick’s vitals are stable. He and Nealsy are the only ones allowed to pass through the double doors into the other hall, and he has been giving Jon periodic updates for the duration of their stay in Mercy.

 

He likes Malkin. For one, he’s very quiet in comparison to the other Penguins, and his presence is soothing rather than unnerving. Jon wonders how a Russian managed to find himself so far away from home. Though Russia is bitter cold, and that in and of itself is a deterrent for the Risen, he can’t imagine the impoverished country being anything approaching safe. He wants to ask, but he feels Malkin might not want to tell the tale.

 

Neal approaches from the other side of the door, opening it slightly. The room stills.

 

“Geno.” He says. Nothing on his face points overtly to anything; but Jon’s breath catches anyway. “Could you come in here?”

 

Malkin doesn’t hesitate. The square of his shoulders belies the tension he couldn’t see in Neal’s face—Jon hates all the questions rising in his throat.

 

The noise starts up again, louder this time, as if to drown out the concern so prevalent in the room. Jon can’t take it anymore. He steps out of the rambunctious waiting room and hunts around until he finds a mostly deserted hallway. Pittsburgh is—beautiful, he wants to say, but unconventionally so. Muted shades of gray carve out the industrial skyline, and from this high up in Mercy General he can see the entire city sprawling before him, gleaming in the false sunlight.

 

He turns his gaze away from the panoramic view, silent footsteps making their way towards him.

 

“How’re you holding up?” Sid greets, moving to stand beside him, eyes turned to the view.

 

“Holding.” Jon replies, dry. _Barely._ He doesn’t add.

 

Sid sees right through him, into everything he tries to hide. A lot like Kane. The thought makes his stomach twist.

 

He swallows. There’s no point in pretending like both he and Sid don’t know what’s on his mind. “How is he?”

 

“Critical.” Sid sighs. “He lost a lot of blood—the surgeons say there’s something lodged into his ribs that they’re going to see if they can pull out without damaging anything internally.”

 

Jon grimaces. His hand clenches involuntarily as the moving image of Kane sprinting into a sea of Risen plays behind his eyes. Idiot, he thinks; for the umpteenth time since it happened. What a fucking idiot. Jon doesn’t care what his reasons were, or his intentions—he’s still a moron and Jon _hates_ him for going and getting himself so fucking injured, for making Jon drag his lifeless ass halfway to Pittsburgh and for making Jon sit here in terror, waiting for him to wake up—

 

He hates that Patrick makes him care.

 

“He’s an idiot.” Jon grits out.

 

Sid snorts. “I’ll say.” He agrees. The other Captain folds his arms, his gaze still diverted towards the Pittsburgh sky, but that doesn’t fool Jon at all; where Sid’s eyes are and where his attention is are two very separate things. Many a soldier learned that the hard way.

 

“He’s a lucky bastard.” Crosby notes. “He should be dead, really. A thousand times dead. I can’t imagine that none of his injuries were lethal; that none of them have poisoned him yet. Or that he could’ve survived the journey here with so much blood loss.”

 

Jon holds his breath. “…Yeah.” He nods.

 

 _More than a thousand times dead._ He adds, silently.

 

For a brief, terrifying moment, Jon thinks Sid will press the issue. But the brunette shakes his head. “Lucky bastard.” He repeats, like he still can’t believe it.

 

“Fucking stupid bastard.” Jon smiles weakly.

 

It startles a laugh out of Sid. “Yeah. Hey, so I’m heading over to command. Do you want to come? We can use the communication systems there to reach your team—probably, anyway. What with the tower down it’s still difficult to contact anyone out in the deadlands.”

 

Jon does; he desperately does. He up and left his fucking men and now that Kane’s not there to distract him he feels terrible. He knows Sharpy’s more than capable of handling the Hawks, but it’s the principle of the thing. Their journey is only halfway finished—they still have to guard the Tower as maintenance makes the repairs, not to mention getting home. And Jon’s Captain; he can’t just up and leave them.

 

But he did.

 

And the reason is sitting in ICU, a dozen surgeons hovering over him.

 

“I…” He falters. He turns back down the hallway, where the doors he’s spent so long staring at are still probably standing guard against anyone who attempts to pass.

 

“He’ll be fine.” Sid assures. “And my team’s here. They’ll call us if anything comes up.”

 

Jon runs a hand through his hair. Sid’s right—of course he’s right, he’s fucking Sidney Crosby. But Jon isn’t feeling all that logical right now; hasn’t since Patrick dove into an ocean of undead and drove Jon to follow him.

 

“You’re right.” He breathes. “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s go.”

 

They traverse the solemn city in silence; a quiet so sentient it bears down heavy and looming against his shoulders. He refuses to think on Kane; wills himself not to.

 

Talking to Sharpy makes it marginally better.

 

“It’s all good here.” Comes the cheery report of his Alternate. “Repairs are going faster than scheduled, what with the help from the Blue Jackets. We’ve sent out the report on the all channel; Columbus and Cincinnati are fine. Encased in about five meters of solid metal, but they’re fine. We dispatched the third line and a couple of the Jackets to go and open them back up from lockdown.”

 

Jon breathes a sigh of relief. “And the team?”

 

“Holding up.” Sharpy replies. “Injuries were minimal. Shawsy’s been whining about his broken thumb—but that’s about the extent of any serious damage.”

 

Jon snorts.

 

‘”They’re worried.” Sharpy begins anew, austere. “For both of you.”

 

“I’m fine.” Jon retorts immediately.

 

“Are you?” Sharpy counters. Jon can almost see him shaking his head. “You didn’t see yourself. You looked… a little unhinged, man.”

 

Jon bites back a remark. “I’m not the one bleeding out on an operation table right now.”

 

“True.” Sharpy agrees. “I’m not saying we’re not all holding our breath for Pat; but we’re worried about the both of you.” _You’re important to us too,_ is left unsaid, but Jon hears it anyway and it makes something like guilt curl in the bottom of his stomach.

 

Jon averts the subject. “What’s our timeline on repairs?”

 

“Anything from two to three weeks.” Sharpy returns. “With travel, that’s about four months out.”

 

Jon makes a noise of assent.

 

“I think we’re keeping good time, though.” Sharpy talks over him. “And from what the engineers are saying, it could be even less. Since the Jacket’s barricaded the upper floors—and most of the critical equipment is up there—it’s a lot of cosmetic and defensive repairs, for the most part.”

 

“That’s great.” Jon swallows. He finds he has an astounding lack of empathy, however: all his attention sis till diverted towards Kane.

 

Sharpy falters; Jon catches the hitch of his breath, the hesitation. “How is he?”

 

Jon bites his lip. He’s infinitely glad that Sid left him alone to make the call; he doesn’t want to know what expression he wears.

 

“We don’t know.” Jon sighs. “He’s holding on, though: but he’s still in critical. Sid said something about the surgeons needing to remove something from his ribs.”

 

Sharpy cursed quietly.

 

“They seem optimistic though.” Jon was quick to say. Whether he was convincing Sharpy or himself, he wasn’t sure. “And… and he’s a touch little fuck. He’ll pull through.”

 

Sharpy let out a breath. “Yeah. Yeah you’re right. Guess all we can do is wait, huh?”

 

Jon smiles, devoid of mirth. “Guess so.”

 

• * •

 

 

Patrick is a subdued presence on the other side of the glass.

 

He is awake, though, so Jon supposes that should count for something. He can’t see much of him underneath the blanket, but a long strip of bandage covers most of his torso and Jon can see it visibly wrap around his shoulder.

 

Jon returns his attention towards the doctor.

 

“We found some metal lodged between two of his ribs.” He says, looking somewhat concerned over it. “The thing is; tissue had already begun to form around it. It appears as if its been in there for some time.”

 

Jon’s really not giving the doctor his due: he’s still watching Patrick, watching his profile turned into the watery light.

 

“—A lot of scar tissue, some surgical. But whoever performed the operations didn’t close the incisions properly.”

 

Patrick turns his head towards him: he’s not sure he likes what he sees in his gaze.

 

“Can you excuse me for a second?” He asks, though it’s rhetorical. He doesn’t spare the doctor a glance as he gently pushes past him and into the room.

 

When he lets himself in, he’s sure to lock the door behind him, much to the protest of the doctor. He pays him no mind, though, all his attentions fixated on Patrick.

 

“You should be dead.” He says, hollow. “A thousand times dead.”

 

Patrick gives him a wan smile. “More than that.” He agrees.

 

Jon moves further into the room, halting at the foot of the blonde’s bed. “You should have died…” He swallows. “That day in the wastes. When we found you. You should have been dead long before we got there.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Your mask was broken.”

 

“I know.”

“The air should have killed you. The wounds you had earlier should have killed you. The—“ He falters. “The bite mark. On your shoulder. That above all else should have killed you.”

 

Patrick blinks, turns his head down towards the shoulder in question. The skin—or what can be seen around the tapestry of bandages—is unmarred. As if it hadn’t existed at all.

 

“Did anyone see it?”

 

“No.” Jon pauses. “Maybe. I don’t think so.”

 

He holds his breath, countenance wavering. Patrick appears unmoved: resigned, even.

 

“You’re not human.” It should be a lot more accusatory than it is. But now it is only fact.

 

The smile returns to his face, but it drifts into something sorrowful, something full of regret.

 

“No, I’m not.” Patrick concedes. His eyes are burning; but Jon has always noticed that. How inhuman they are—how inhuman Patrick is.

 

“But neither are you.”

 

How inhuman _he_ is.

 

• * •

 

 

The oppressive sun bears down on him; cold and hollow.

 

The wastes emerge from behind a buffeting of cliffs, spreading into the indeterminable distance like an unending tragedy. The sight instills within him a quiet repose: the dilapidated rocks, the scoured earth, a desultory mess of uncoordinated earth.

 

He traverses into the dip of the valley, finds a reticent union as he moves through the silence. Finds composure in the disorganized stillness.

 

Something stills his movement; his instincts light in fire and he tightens his grip on his gun, even if the presence is familiar as it is.

 

And from the disorderly ocean the immaculate figure emerges from a burning, wintry light, just beneath the torched sky. The silhouette elicits a certain, timorous feeling tucked away behind his ribs; where his heart burns and rests. From this distance, he cannot make out anything but peels of light and shadow, lashed and insatiable essences in barborous gold. Like the tarnished world around him he stands alone in his lonesome dynasty, still unattainable; elusive, desolate.

 

But everything in him trembles and burns at the sight of him, alight in the loitering, narrow channels of his blood—and he still doesn’t know what to do with that. He doesn’t know why or how but he finds his feet moving through the decrepit earth, soft in the gray and melancholy waste.

 

Patrick stands stalactite still as he stares into the wicked sky; as if he is waiting for time itself, in the deep places full of light and lament.

 

Jon approaches his rocky throne, stares up into the boy framed in the startling sky and debates whether or not he wants to scale the distance up there.

 

Fortunately Patrick makes his decision for him, leaping with elegance about the mountain of rubble, coming to rest in the apex of a rock just above Jon.

 

He turns his illuminate, omniscient gaze towards Jon, smile alit with mischief.

 

“You don’t look surprised to see me.” He greets, low, with a slow and steady smile.

 

“Should I be?” Jon returns, quiet, as if he does not want to break the sweet silent spaces between them.

 

He should. He should wonder how Patrick managed to traverse from the coast to Chicago, a lone wanderer in a destructive land. He should wonder how Patrick knew he had scrawled a note to Sharpy in the dusty gloom of his unused apartment, how he knew that Jon had a satchel of everything he had ever held in any legitimate regard. How he knew that something has besieged the calendar of his bones, restraining his blood so that it surges and flows into the everlasting distance, like the film of uncertain vapor.

 

How he knew that Jon would choose this day and this path to disappear into the ether.

 

He doesn’t, though. Because he has long since given up understanding the intrinsic connection he shares with Patrick Kane. With this magnetic transient whose death blooms and vanishes—being and nothingness: forever broken with a dazzling lurch as those eyes turn to him, lower into something unreadable, as he closes the distance between their mouths.

 

Jon catches his lips with his own, a brief flutter of pressure against him before Patrick pulls away. He lingers in Jon’s space, sharing his breath, and Jon can see a thousand colors in those unnatural eyes, can see a history of evolution.

 

“Where should we go first?” Patrick breathes into him, his words a whisper against Jon’s cheeks, as quiet and ambiguous as the murmuring earth beneath them.

 

“Edmonton, I was thinking.” Because it’s true. And because he wants to see the expressions flicker of Patrick’s face, wants to catch them and hold them in his hands.

 

“Edmonton it is.” Patrick smiles, wicked.

 

He hops from his purchase against the rock, sauntering into the open world behind Jon with a possession of arrogance that Jon can only admonish with great, affectionate exasperation.

 

The sprawling sky and unfurling world are held in a mouldering vacancy, in the rich spaces between day and night, unaccountable silvery glitterings trail along the darker edges. Behind them is the faltering sun; before them, night crawls along the horizon, dragging blue tassels over the land with bright spindles and diamond lancets.

 

And under the shivering stars Patrick pauses, turns to look questioning over his shoulder. “You coming?”

 

In his gaze is everything—certainty, affection, belonging: _home._

 

Jon follows him into the distance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I personally like this version of the ending: i like obscure things where I can make up things in my head. But the epilogue + alternate ending is on my dw - friend for access!

**Author's Note:**

> for more multimedia (and quicker updates) go to:
> 
> http://slexenskee.dreamwidth.org/ (friend me for access!)
> 
> more concept art:
> 
> http://slexenskee.tumblr.com/
> 
> If you don't have a dw account you can message me through my website abarretto.com/slexenskee and give me your email and I'll send you a pdf!


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